Winds of Change
by Gobstein
Summary: A desperate escape has led the 53rd Autonomous Exploration Fleet to an unexpected destiny. For its part, the Inner Sphere knows peace of a sort for the first time after the long and dark years of the succession wars. Both are in a collision course, will the result be a new Golden Age? or a War darkest than any other previous?
1. Prologue

A new work, or rather an old one. I begun this one in 2012 and for some time it lingered in my hard drive in dire need of a review. Well, the time is now, the review is mostly complete and am now posting these here.

Enjoy

* * *

**System KTX-1748  
May 4th 2048**

KTX-1748 was a mostly unremarkable system. It had six planets with potential for industrial exploitation, but nothing outside the norm. Even its star, a red dwarf, was rather uninteresting and disappointingly normal. The only exception to this was the fourth planet, recently named Anatole, a barren rock rich in various ores.

It wasn't, however, the planet itself what was interesting, but what orbited it.

The real prize was the wreckage floating about the system. Perhaps 70 years prior to what was now called Space War I, the Galactic Civil war, a war that had been raging for over 500.000 years, had come to KTX-1748. A Zentradi fleet had clashed with a Supervision Army force in and around the fourth planet leaving countless hulls in the Lagrange points, particularly the L4 and in orbit of the planet. The planet's craters and scorch marks bore witness to a massive orbital bombardment, one on the scale of that suffered by Earth during the latter stages of Space War I.

Battlefields had been found before, but few could match the number of hulks left behind.

To put it plainly, it was a real find.

Admiral Reuben Thomes couldn't help but grin at the report. The UN Space Navy, Spacy for short, was always hungry for hulls, even if they were second hand. Why they had gotten good at refurbishing old hulks into serviceable ships.

Thomes command, the 53rd Autonomous Exploration Fleet, was amongst the smallest standalone forces the Spacy fielded and of those ships the large majority were Northampton Frigates

For him this was not only an opportunity to scrounge intel data on the local Supervision Army and Zentradi forces, part of the reason why he was out here, it was also a chance add to the 53rd's order of battle.

"Currently we have all our survey teams combing the main field at the L4 spot," stated Commodore Vifol Duperiale in her trademark monotone. "They are concentrating mostly on the hulls that match our needs, but I also have a team on the one Nupitiet," she said referring to the only command battleship identified so far. "The hull is a total loss, I fear, but we might be able to salvage its datacore." Vifol was of Zentradi descent, she was a tall woman with viridian hair and an athletic build. Some said she was built like a Zentradi commander and had the disposition to match; though never in her presence.

"Good," Reuben asked "and what about the Supervision Army hulks?"

"I was hoping we could... delay that survey until the convoy gets here." Vifol responded with a hint of concern. Once the fleet had made the find, they had contacted the UN command to notify them about the find; and to request permission to set shop, as it were. Reply had been swift, or at least as swift as possible given their current FTL lag. A large scale convoy was gathering at Proxima and they expected it to arrive within three months. "However, if you wish for me to, I can order the 16th to abandon their current survey, a Quiltra Queleual LST and..."

"It won't be necessary," he interrupted waving one arm. "We better leave that to the Convoy."  
Truth be told, Thomes was as apprehensive of messing with Supervision Army derelicts as the next man. It was a dangerous task better left to the professionals. After all, the last time mankind had messed with one without proper care, they had ended up with the near extinction of the species.

* * *

**System KTX-1748  
Hull designated 227, Quiltra Queleual LST  
May 5th 2048**

It was dark and quiet as a pair of Helot Mk 3 destroids made their way through the abandoned corridors. The Helot was a modification of the Spartan II Main Battle Robot, one of the first generation destroids originally introduced by the UN in 2008. The Helots had been designed for a rear echelon role, and even for the civilian market as hostile environment labor units. Unlike the Spartan II, it carried only a small weapons load, with most of the remaining payload stripped out and replaced with tools and sensors.

'Most' didn't mean all however. They still retained the Anti-air lasers and a low powered laser from the torso gun cluster, though the latter was considered a cutting tool compared to the weapons on the market these days. The pair of Helots was one of the many teams that had been scouring the ship for the last two days. Salvage was a dangerous job, they not only had to navigate through wreckage, but also mark unexploded ordnance for the demo teams and valuable salvage for the retrieval teams that would follow through.

The ship's atmosphere was long gone, and so was gravity control. That meant they had to use their magnetic grapples to move around, slowing their task significantly with the need to navigate around floating debris and other hazards. Surprisingly, there was still some power to the ship but the residual lighting was too dim to be of any use. There was just enough of it to make things look creepier.

In the cockpit of Helot 107 "Devil Dog" Victor Enis was frowning. He had been a surveyor for the last fifteen years, since he got out of the UN Marines, and yet this was the first time he was working on a derelict. It felt a bit too much like grave robbing to him. The ship hadn't looked bad in the outside, but the inside? It was a whole different thing. The hulk full of detritus... 'Detritus, yeah, call it by the proper name old chap,' he thought, corpses, junk, shrapnel, unexploded ordnance and what not. 'A nice clean name for an ugly thing.'

The Queleuals had been designed by the long gone Protoculture to support ground action but they also served as support and supply vessels. Their three kilometer long hulls could dedicate large areas to hangars and cargo holds. Weapon wise it was a bit under-armed, at least for front line combat duty, however for the role it filled a large arsenal of weapons wasn't important. It had just enough to support invasion, provide pinpoint bombardment, and to defend itself. Hull 227 had probably been a supply variant given the large amount of salvage the teams had found so far.

Victor might have had second thoughts about the job, but it was his, and he was going to do it, even if he'd rather be at The Variation enjoying a nice cold beer.

"Well boss, what do you think? Is she worth it?" the radio crackled to life. The voice belonged to Astor Phink, his wingman.

"It better be Astor," he half muttered, "Stores should be worth something at least, there are quite a few reaction warheads back in the last hold"

"Yeah, still, damn what luck," Astor complained, much like Victor, he wasn't too fond of abandoned warships

"Sigh, hey kid, its ok, we will be out of here in a while and be able to hit the Variation for happy hour."

"Heh, sounds good"

"Wait a sec, seems the hatchway to the next stores area is closed," Victor said as he stopped his machine. Zentradi vessels of the same class were all identical no matter where had they been built and the salvage crews had the plans to them all by now. That was one of the lucky breaks for the salvage teams, it meant that they not only knew were their location but where they were going. Of course, battle damage could and did alter the scenario somewhat, but that wasn't the case, at least not this time.

"Huh, yeah. See it. So we call it up?"

"Nah," Victor drawled as he flipped the master arm switch, "we got lasers kid. We'll burn a hole in and then I'll dismount and take a peak." Saying that, Devil Dog, began moving again, this time with a purpose, as the laser pod opened up exposing its weapon to the emptiness.  
It wasn't the arsenal carried by its military cousin, but the Astra laser was all that was needed to make swift work, for a certain value of swift, of the closed hatchway.  
"Ok, go ahead Victor," muttered Astor.

For his part Enis couldn't help but smile, it had been some time since he had used the Astra Laser, but some things were easy to remember.

"Like riding a bicycle," he whispered, and with that he pressed the trigger.

The Hypercarbon alloy of the bulkhead first begun to scorch and then to melt as the laser unloaded with surgical precision. Slowly, perhaps too slowly, the mark begun to grow and instead of a dot became a line and, eventually, a full circle.

It took twenty minutes to finish cutting a larger than man sized hole in the bulkhead. Victor moved his machine forward and, using his machine's "hands", he retrieved the cut segment and set it to a side where it floated silently while cooling.

"Ok, that took a bit longer than I thought," stated Victor though the radio, "I am going to check my seals and prepare for EVA"

"Roger."

With ease from experience, the Surveyor went over the checklist and then accessed the mecha's survival locker. Most of it was non-applicable for the situation, but the heavy duty flashlight, on the other hand, was a different matter. Especially given how dark it was outside.

With an almost inaudible hiss the main hatch opened, exposing Victor Enis' cockpit to the vacuum. It only took a swift action to undo the harness fastening him to the Helot and then he was in freefall.

"Checking radio, you read me, Kid?" he rasped into his headset

"Loud and Clear, you sure you want to go through with this one, old timer?" came the prompt reply.

"Hehehe, of course," he said with a laugh. Even though he was still apprehensive about the grave robing, he liked EVAs. Plus there was the curiosity of the surveyor in him; this had been the first hatchway he had seen closed, so far, which was strange. One would have expected most of them closed for combat ops. Probably a failure of a subsystem or some such, Victor thought, while Zentradi ships were built to last, sooner or later lack of maintenance would do the trick.

Victor had no manned maneuvering unit, or MMU, but as a seasoned spacehand, Zero G ops wasn't a problem. With a light movement he was free of his couch and of the cockpit and moving, floating, towards the gap he had created. The hole was far larger than what he needed, but it was for the best, really. The edges were still glowing hot and would do so for quite the while. He knew better than to try for a snug fit.

"Ok, I am inside."

While the outside had been in twilight, the inside was pitch dark. No light fixtures seemed to have survived or, more likely, the last Quartermaster had turned the lightning off before leaving the room for the last time.

"So, see anything?" asked the junior member of the team.

"I am working on it," he said as he fumbled with his flashlight. "Oh, there it goes, now let me have a look..."

"Ah, old timer, you ok?" Astor's voice was somewhat hesitant. "Victor?" he said some time later, using his senior's first name, somewhat nervous.

"Ah, sorry bout that kid, ah, we have a situation," came the reply, an eternity, perhaps thirty seconds, latter.

"A situation?"

"Oh yeah, better contact the higher ups," he said, as he watched the gigantic head of a Meltrandi, a female Zentradi, floating peacefully in a, as far as he could tell, very active stasis chamber.

Admiral Reuben Thomes looked at the report with a degree of disbelief and the hint of a coming headache.

"A full regiment of Meltrandi on ice?" he half murmured. Reuben had expected complications when he ordered the salvage operation. Complications were part of the deal, but he anticipated unexploded ordnance, or having to decide which hull would be salvaged first. Moral issues weren't included or expected.

"We need to defrost them," Commodore Duperiale said matter-of-factly.

"That we do, but I am more concerned about the how we go about it. This fleet has no miclone chamber and we don't really have the amenities to accommodate full sized Zentradi," he said with a sigh. "Still it does solve the issue on which ship we will be salvaging first"

"Silver lining?"

"I'd say. And once we have restored atmosphere to that hold we can see about defrosting them," he scratched his chin, "In the mean time we will be moving the fleet to the L4. Dispatch the _Fortune Eight_," he said referring to the Fleet's lone Tristar industrial vessel, "to dock with the Queleual. Have the Yardships and Whales stand by, I'd rather have them work on Quelamitz monitors. Contact the Whales and see if they can fab us a miclone chamber as well. They should have the schematics."

"Understood."

"So... any other news?"

"That is about it, Sir."

"Then I shan't take more of your time," he said, dismissing the Commodore.

With an exchange of salutes Vifol Duperiale left the room and Reuben begun rereading the report. It was going to be a logistical nightmare, not to mention they were going to be dealing with programmed clones. He was going to have to talk to Dr. Fraga, maybe she could do something about the Protoculture's mental programming.

Their programming could be broken, that they were alive now was proof of it, but he didn't have much maneuvering room unlike, say, a colony fleet. More to the point, the breakdown of the programming, their ace in the hole during the war, had led to aberrant behavior, renegades, rogues and pirates, from both Zentran and Meltran, which were still a blight within some of the UN territories.

Doctor Elizabeth Fraga was the Fleet's senior scientist. She was short and well past middle age, her hair, once platinum blonde, was now mostly white but she was still vigorous and more than a little peculiar. She also had a shark like grin, but that was mostly situational. It wasn't everyday her boss asked her to try something new. The Spacy had dabbled with clones before, with the parentless generation following SWI, but not with the imprinting, at least not in the way the Admiral was asking.

During the decanting of the parentless generation, the clones had been imprinted with some knowledge, but there had been no time to waste raising children. There was too much to do during those hectic years and the clones themselves had been adults, or of adult development. This was different, this was changing, or rather fine tuning, an existing template into something more malleable. It was skirting morally questionable ground, maybe more than that, but a regiment of Meltran warriors required a very careful approach.

"Oh, I can do it, no doubt about it, the question is, Sir, what are we going to overwrite it with?" Dr. Fraga asked.

"Nothing too drastic," said Thomes as he scratched his chin, "We need them to understand freedom and emotions, Elisabeth. Maybe even social nuances, but nothing of enforced loyalties." he said with a certain finality, "We are going to walk a fine line as it is."

"It won't be easy, Admiral."

"No, it won't but we aren't paid for easy, Doctor. Besides, we have time to spare, or at least until the convoy gets here."

* * *

**System KTX-1748  
UNS **_**Freeman J. Dyson**_**  
May 14th 2048**

The Advanced Macross class _Freeman J. Dyson_ (SDF-37) was the heart of the 53rd. She, like most of her class, had been built following a derivative of the SDF-2 specifications, before command had decided to turn the unfinished hull into Megaroad 01.

Larger and more massive than the original Macross it was based on, it lacked New Macross levels of redundancy and modularity, but it made it up with a lower construction and operations costs

Sometimes called Macross Plus variant, the ship was more than capable of leading a fleet and carried inside a small civilian enclave and an industrial sector capable of producing most forms of Variable Fighter and Destroids, or the needed parts to keep its own compliment up and running.

She was also in a very bad situation.

"Status!" barked Admiral Thomes as he entered the combat information center

"Unknown, Sir. Defold activity started at 0400," the watch officer stated, "and hasn't stopped since. We count at least five thousand hulls so far, that is five, zero, zero, zero hulls, all of Zentradi design and IFF."

Reuben Thomes could see the holoscreen dominating the room, in it the representation of the system was marked with angry red spots somewhere near the L2 of the second planet, Kest, where the Zentradi force was still appearing.

"Have they detected us?"

"No, not yet," came the reply.

"Good, let's keep it that way; we will remain in the debris field so far. Assign _Azure_ and _Viridian_ as pickets and have them keep an eye out for us." He paused a second to analyze the data before him "They appear to be forming onto a fleet, but there's nothing on Kest for that."

"We haven't surveyed these planets at any real depth, sir," Duperial added in her own monotone.

"True," he admitted as he continued to watch the ships appear, "we prioritized the debris field, perhaps a bit too much..."

All told, it took a half hour for all the vessels, some 15.000 all told, to materialize in and around the L2 spot for Kest. after that they began moving in a tight formation towards said planet.

"Very Strange." stated Vifol Duperiale

"Agreed. They seem to be expecting battle and soon." he turned towards the watch officer. "What do you think, Commander Abramson?"

"I agree sir," the watch commander responded, "the formation seems to be Claw Blue, not only they are expecting trouble, they are expecting an overwhelming problem." Zentradi tended to go into battle with superiority of numbers on their side, most of their tactics centered around that fact, but they did had a few for when things weren't so, Claw Blue was one of these, perhaps one of the most pessimist of them as well. The fact that the Zentradi commander had chosen that formation furthered the mystery. "They are also moving at a very conservative speed."

"So he expects all hell to break loose?" said Reuben while scratching his chin

"That would be my analysis, sir," came the prompt reply from Abramson.

Five hours later, the Zentradi fleet had taken orbit around Kest. Upon reaching the planet's geosynchronous orbit, the alien fleet opened up its formation a bit and then, their monitors opened fire at the planet below.

"They opened fire, just like that!" Commodore Duperiale stated with a tinge of disbelief in her voice that broke her usual monotones, denoting how bizarre things were getting. In a normal situation, the alien fleet would have taken orbit around the planet before unleashing their broadsides, but here they just opened fire as they came into range.

"This is getting surreal. Vifol, you think the Zentradi Commander might be malfunctioning in some way?" asked Reuben.

"I...," she seemed to struggle for the words, "that might be the case but," whatever she as going to say got swallowed by an alert klaxon.

"Fold wave distortions detected," stated the senior sensor officer "Intensity six, no eight. No," Her voice seemed to dry up for a second. "It's off the charts and is also reverberating throughout the system!"

Unnatural was the word unsaid. It was. But that wasn't the real issue.

"We won't be able to fold." Admiral Thomes muttered. Inside he was seething, this was getting ridiculous. "A Supervision Army trap?" he asked his Commodore

"Not a very good trap if it is all there is to it," she said. That was something they had to consider. Even if the fold fluctuations would stop them from jumping out, there was nothing stopping them from slow-boating out of the area of effect. Sure it might take a few months, depending how far the effect reached, but... but it was too easy an answer for the effort it would have been needed to prepare the trap. The energy cost needed to create the number of distortions alone would be simply astonishing.

"No, I reckon you are right," he removed his hat and passed a hand though his hair "Still, contact Fraga, have her detail as much as her personnel onto this. Priority one."

"Understood."

Four hours later, the other shoe dropped. Fraga's people came with the missing piece of the puzzle. It wasn't good news.

"The Sun is going nova?" again it was Commodore Duperiale's voice, and again it was sporting emotion, which was whole new record for her on duty persona.

"At an alarming rate, Commodore," said Dr. Fraga.

"How long?" asked Admiral Thomes, this time it was him using monotone.

"A few days at best," came Fraga's reply.

"Is there anything we can do about this?" Thomes asked.

"Well, there might be something, Sir." There was a hint of a smile on Elizabeth Fraga's face.

"Doctor?" asked the Admiral, somewhat concerned.

"Well, I'll admit that the intensity of the fold waves is considerably higher than anything on record," The Dyson's chief engineer, Tadeus Mitchelson, gave a snort of disbelief.

"That is a real understatement, Doctor," he interrupted.

"Not nearly as bad as you might think Chief Mitchelson," Elisabeth paused, "One of my colleagues, Dr Andreesean, had suggested it might be possible to trigger a fold reverberation such as this one to work as a fold interdictor, as it were"

"That I am aware, doctor, I know who Andreesan is and..." started the engineer before he was cut off by Dr. Fraga

"Then you must be aware he came up with an idea on how to pierce such an interdiction field, from within. A fold within a modulated fold, quite an interesting concept," she said with a certain fascination, "I never thought I'd be in a position to test it."

"How big a hole?" came the Admiral's question.

"Big enough for all of us, I think. I'd have to run some numbers, but given that we are in a Lagrange point ourselves, we should have room to spare. Though," she paused, "it might be a tad more difficult to hit the target location successfully."

"As long as we manage to escape this trap, it should do, Doctor. Chief what do you think?" Reuben said turning towards his subordinate.

Mitchelson remained silent for a minute, before we answered, "It might work, but we might also end up with our insides out. Dr Andreesan's theories are intriguing, though a bit on the theoretical side, at least till now," he rubbed his chin, "then again it's not like we have any other options. At least not within the current timeframe." He turned towards Doctor Fraga, "Doctor, I am going to need Harmonics for the fold drive"

"I will have to work on them, but it should have them within the day," she responded.

"Then we are in agreement," Admiral Thomes stated, "I am clearing all our available resources to work on this one, good luck to us all."

It took two days to prepare the fleet, including moving some of the valuable derelicts inside the fleet perimeter and moving others outside of it. The ships tractored in were too heavily engaged by the salvage ops to fully disengage within the time frame, too important to be left behind, or were the ships already docked with the yardships or the Tristar.

In the end, Dr. Fraga and Engineer Mitchelson had agreed on the Highland class industrial ships as the ones to pull the twin folds. The Highlands, sometimes called Whales, were originally Zentradi LST, but heavily converted once captured. They had much smaller capability than the purpose built Tristars and their built in dock was considerably smaller than their purpose built cousins.

Still, they were also more common and much cheaper than their purpose built cousins. Additionally, the ships' fold drives were powerful, rugged and identical. Left unsaid was in a worst case scenario, the fleet could afford to lose them both. Only skeleton, all volunteer, crews were left within their hulls. The morale in the fleet had taken a plunge, but only so far, most people were busy working for their survival.

_Too busy to fret, at least for the moment,_ thought the Admiral

The _Dyson_ CIC still showed the images of the Zentradi fleet, surprisingly they had kept bombarding the same spot of Kest but had made no other moves.

"Hard to think they've kept the bombardment for the past two days," said Admiral Thomes. He turned towards a holoscreen. "Well Doctor, seems we might yet live though today."

"Posh, don't be such a pessimist, Admiral. All is ready on my end," was the prompt reply. The doctor had chosen to weather the jump from the UNS _Detroit Blue_, the Highland that was going to pull the second jump. Her clothing was stained and dirty, and so was her hair. It was a rather shocking image compared to the always prim and proper Doctor Fraga he knew, it somehow drove the point of how dire things were.

"If you say so, Doctor. All is ready on your end?"

"Yes, and I have word from Mitchelson, all is ready on his end over the _Sao Pablo Gold_" Much like her, Tadeus Mitchelson had opted to oversee the final fine tuning aboard the other Highland. It was a bit reckless on their part, but it was also within their duties and it was a morale lift, something the fleet could use. And if it didn't work... Reuben squashed that idea before it could fully form.

"Very Well, then the order is given," he said to the CIC at large, "Commence fold operation."

The holoscreen disappeared as the CIC burst into action. Countdowns begun to flash, and the checklist began to be completed. Reuben Thomes, sat down in his chair and fastened the harness. He had done his part, now he was going to wait the consequences.

"Five minutes to fold. All personnel to their jump stations, I repeat" the PA declared aloud. "Five minutes to fold. All personnel to their jump stations."

And then, an eternity latter, the familiar fold distortions started to fill the room.

In the end, they beat the shock wave by a full six hours.


	2. Chapter 1

First Chapter, like I said before, I have a few of these that have been sleeping in my HHD for some time.

Anyway, thanks to AndrasOtto for the beta

* * *

**Unknown Location**

**May 17****th**** 2048**

**UNS**_** Freeman J. Dyson**_

"Defold Complete" the somewhat mechanical voice of the computer broke the silence.

Operating by reflex, Admiral Thomes undid his Harness and took a deep breath.

It had been a rough fold, probably the worst he ever experienced, but it was one he did experience, so he wasn't going to complain. Even if he was still seeing spots and his body was aching all over.

The lightning in the CIC was gone, replaced by the dim red glow of the emergency sets and there was a deep smell of ozone in the air.

"Status!" He barked.

"Unknown Sir," Abramson, replied from his station, "Sensors are still down, but we seem to be in one piece."

"I see, Commander," the Admiral said. He paused for a second, "What is the status of the comms?"

"Comms are operational, but FleetNet is offline" replied the comm. Officer as she worked her holoscreen, "I am in the process of rebooting FleetNet, Sir."

As she spoke, the lightning dimmed and flickered for a second as the standard lightning was restored.

"Well, it seems we have proper lighting now," said Abramson.

"FleetNet Reboot, successful," the comm officer said not removing her sight from her station. "Querying the fleet"

"Switch holo table to FleetNet," ordered Thomes as he stood up.

The main holo table shifted to a representation of the fleet, included the tag along derelicts, one by one the grayed out icons were replaced by green ones as they returned query.

"Fleet has transitioned successfully" added the Comm. officer as the last symbol turned green.

"Damage control teams are moving towards the Sensor array, we should have them restored within the hour" stated Commander Abramson looking up from his post.

"Sir, UNS _Azure_ is reporting Sensors on line, reestablishing FleetNet protocol." Stated the Comm Officer as she worked to connect to the _Azure _sensor network. Under normal circumstances the information would have been relayed automatically, but the fold had shaken the system beyond tolerances and was in need of manual input, for the moment.

"Good, well? What is our status, Ensign?" Admiral Thomes asked as he moved towards the Sensor operator.

"Receiving Data now, sir... I... Sir, we aren't in KTX-1770," stuttered the Sensor officer.

"Its okay, the Doctor did warn us we might end a bit off course, can you plot our current location?"

"I," he paused, "Yes sir, give me a moment," beginning to work frantically on his station to triangulate their current location using available astrogation information.

Five minutes later the sensor officer raised his head from his station.

"Sir, this... this can't be right," he uttered.

"What is it, son."

"Sir, we are off course. Very." He seemed to struggle with words, "I... this shouldn't be possible, we are somewhere near GLK-2526."

The alphanumerical prefix was all Thomes needed to know things gone weird. The Ensign was right, it was impossible. The prefix put them somewhere spinward and anti coreward from Earth, while they had been very coreward and so had been their fallback location.

"Switch holotable to Navigation" the Admiral ordered.

Before him, the massive holotable shifted again, this time showing a local map of the galaxy. There were three markers, one, red, marked their point of origin, a second, green, marked their planned point of arrival, both of them had been only 40 light-years apart.

Further out, there was a blue marker; this one marked their estimated location. The latter one was well over 5,000 light-years apart from the other two.

Again, it was impossible. The energy requirements needed for a fold of that level were, at least, an order of magnitude higher than what they had employed.

"Contact Detroit Blue and get in touch with Doctor Fraga, see if she can puzzle this one." Thomes begun pacing the CIC, "in the meantime, query the fleet for their status and readiness and raise HQ while we are at it, they are going to want to know about this."

"Sir," came the voice of the Comms. Officer this time. "We have an issue, the local Beacon network seems... gone."

This was going to be a long day. A very long day.

* * *

He had been right; thirty hours later, the day hadn't ended yet, at least not for the Command staff. Once the situation had stabilized, for a very relative value of stable, since they still hadn't been able to raise HQ, or anyone else, they had sent messages in the proper channels and frequencies, but so far there had been no reply, worse not only was the network gone, but there wasn't any traffic they could pick up, which was beyond strange.

But with the situation more stable, it had been the duty of the command staff to organize a debriefing of the event and to see exactly where they were standing.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are in a bad way, off course and off contact. Anyone wants to start?" Admiral Thomes spoke first from his place on the table.

"That should be me," stated Dr. Elizabeth Fraga. She was looking frizzed out and tired, her clothes were somewhat dirty and worn. If anything it was expected, the Doctor and all her crew had been pulling double shifts since the crisis begun.

"Very well, doctor," he said motioning towards Elizabeth Fraga.

"I... have bad news, sir," she said, formally, which was an alarm sign in on itself.

"Doctor, we have had a few days' worth of bad news, out with it" Came the voice from Colonel Kuang, the Destroid regiment CO. He was an oddity in the fleet given that he was Army instead of Marines, but like in many things, the 53rd was a weird fleet formed from off and ends.

"Yes, I am aware of that, Colonel," she paused, contemplating the situation for a second. She smirked in resignation; "well so be it, I've never been good at mollycoddling things." she took a deep breath and seemed to straighten out.

"I fear we have misfolded, yes Admiral," she said raising one arm, preempting any complaints before they could fully form, "I know you are aware of that, regretfully, the degree of the misfold is considerably larger than what you suspect. Per available data we are not only over 5,000 light years off course, but about a millennium into the future, except, and here is the kicker," the emphasized that last word, "it is not our future."

A silence fell to the room as the present tried to comprehend the situation. It was a bold claim, but then again Dr. Fraga was one of the best in her field, even if it had been her "sunny disposition" being the reason behind her signing up for the 53rd science department, quitting to a prestigious post near Macross City.

"Are you sure of this, Doctor?" asked Thomes, hesitantly.

"Regretfully so, I became aware to the issues with the misfold when I noted the stellar drift, and then compared the planetary orbits of the rocks in 2526," she said referring to the nearby system, "and tried to match..."

"I understand, but how do you know this isn't our future?" there was some pressure to the Admiral's voice, a part of him wanting the woman before him to be wrong and another part of him almost certain she was right.

"Well, once the degree of misfold became apparent, I decided to run full tests... the quantum signatures, well, there were slight, but consistent, mismatches on all tests." she scratched the back of her head, "to be honest I ran those on a whim, but like I said they are conclusive, this is an alternative reality, to put it in popular parlance."

"Can something be done about it? A return course plotted?" asked Commodore Duperiale in a reserved monotone.

"Normally I'd say yes, but given that our point of origin is by now a nova, I... It will take some research" Responded Dr. Fraga, her tone firm but somewhat hesitant.

"Some?" came the voice from Colonel Kuang, sounding a bit incredulous.

"A lot, probably." Admitted Dr. Fraga, "To be perfectly honest I don't know how long or if it will be possible to recreate the conditions. We were caught up in some rather unique circumstances."

"Understandable, Doctor, However this means we will be thinking long term here." Admiral Thomes paused for a second scratching his chin, "Anybody wants to continue?"

"Certainly, Admiral" replied Vifol Duperiale, "I have the status report of the fleet"

"How bad off are we?"

"Surprisingly intact, the two Whales will need new fold drives, per Chief Mitchelson's report, but other than that we are about 75% readiness. Some vessels have suffered some very light and repairable damage. It should only affect our defense plans in a very limited manner."

"Stores?"

"Well, we were expecting the convoy to replenish our supplies and deliver further replacement squadrons of VF-171s. As you are all aware, we still have a lot of obsolete Thunderbolts serving as the bulk of our space arm. Even with Shinsei's Block E upgrade they are seriously under-performing compared to modern designs. Not that the 171 is a large step forward." she added with a very slight tone of sarcasm.

And it was true, the VF-171, the Nightmare Plus, was a subpar machine compared to the far more robust VF-19 Excalibur, but it was also considerably cheaper, as in nearly half as cheap and far simpler to maintain and was also more forgiving to pilots. The bean counters back at Macross City though it better to go with quantity, probably mistaking it for a 'quantity of reasonable quality'. A serious mistake in Thomes' eyes, given whom their likely opponents would be, or now, might have been, over long term. But it was also a done choice. Thomes had done all he could to preserve the Fleet's assigned VF-19 squadrons, while upgrading and updating the aging VF-11 Thunderbolts, but beyond that there wasn't much the fleet could do. While they did have considerable industrial capabilities, they simply weren't in the same league as a Colony fleet.

"However, we have currently raw materials for ten months and our stock of critical parts is at 52%" she concluded.

"And the chances to do the replacement by ourselves?" asked the Admiral.

"Tricky." Interrupted the chief engineer Mitchelson, "We have the specifications so we could fab the tools and dyes, but I'd recommend against it before we get ourselves set up..." he paused for a second, puzzlement evident in his face. "We are going to settle down, right?"

"We'll have to," replied the Admiral, "however we might have an advantage here. Doctor, can you tell how similar this universe is in comparison to our own?"

"Like I said before, differences seem minute, outside of the time difference," She answered, "so it should be, oh... I see, yes Admiral, things should be more or less identical, we should still check, but..."

"Good. That should save us a lot of time, but I agree. We should check first." having said that, Thomes turned towards Commodore Duperiale, "Commodore?"

"Yes Admiral?" replied Duperiale.

"What is the status of the First and Second Frigate Divisions?" he asked.

"Eighty-nine and Ninety-two percent readiness respectively. There are two units, the UNS _Vensiford_, and the UNS _Fortham_, that I would like to retain due to their damage. The rest should be available to perform any midterm mission as required."

"Very well." Replied Admiral Thomes,before turning towards the sole army officer in the room, "Colonel Kuong, how is the Destroid Force?"

"We are more or less intact Admiral. There was some damage to Bay 15 during or after the fold, one of the cradles failed," explained Kuong, "but the damage was minimal and should be repaired within 48 hours. Additionally I have detailed a team to investigate the nature of the cradle failure."

"Very good." replied the Admiral, then looking towards Mitchelson, "what about our tag alongs?" he said referring to the derelicts.

"Well, it's a mixed bag, they all need yard time, a lot of it too," replied Thaddeus Mitchelson , "but with time and resources we should be able to refit them all," he paused contemplatively, "Five years I'd say, depending on what you are after, maybe less if you just want them functional."

"Not as fast as I'd expect, but given our new reality they might not be as important to the grand scheme of things. Not for the next few years, anyway" Thomes finally admitted.

"There is that." agreed the chief engineer.

"How close is the 227 to being airtight?" the Admiral asked.

"The Meltrandi Hulk?" Mitchelson paused for a second, "Well, she is still a mess, but I can have the storage section with atmo in, say, six days, four if I make it a priority. Power is going to be tricky; I'd recommend getting the gals before we try to restore it."

"And the miclone chamber?" Asked Thomes.

"_Detroit Blue_ has two almost finished, say two days to completion, if we give it priority," replied Mitchelson, promptly.

"Doctor?" Admiral Thomes turned towards Doctor Fraga.

"Well, I've worked on the adjustments, as requested, but I've obviously I haven't done the imprints yet."

"How soon?" this time it was Colonel Kuong who asked the question

"That is going to be time intensive, but can be done as we defrost them. We could begin as soon as you give the go. Though I'll be leaving this in the hands of Doctor Ghant, he is the specialist in Zentradi cloning techniques in my staff."

"I didn't know we had one," mussed the Admiral.

"It was his second Doctorate, something about trying to understand his wife's people better" Dr. Elizabeth Fraga commented nonchalantly.

"In that case," Thomes said turning towards Mitchelson, "we should give this issue some priority, especially given how precarious their situation is." Ideally it would have been better to wait till they had settled down, but with the risk involved it wasn't worth it, plus they could use the manpower.

"Well, Then it seems all topics are covered," said the admiral, "except one, I will be talking with Mayor Logan next. I will break the news to her and then try to come up with a plan for the civilians."

* * *

Like all UNS fleets, the 53rd had a significant civilian component. Unlike a colonization fleet, the civilians were mostly dependents of the enlisted, entrepreneurs looking to sate the needs of the migrant populations and always a few adventurous souls looking for the frontier.

To administer their needs and to represent them in front of the military command, the civilians of the 53rd had elected Mayor Gloria Logan. She was an older woman, a retired marine and veteran of the Space war; she also was the ranking civilian.

She was not in a good mood.

Her office was the definition of spartan, small and plain, with only the UN flag for decoration.

She was standing by her desk, looking away from Thomes and into the artificial sunset that shone over the enclosed town inside the Dyson.

"I told you grave robbing would get us into trouble, Reuben," she stated giving her back to the Admiral.

"Too tempting to ignore, I fear," responded Reuben Thomes. He was standing before her, almost at attention. Some habits died hard.

"You were always a greedy one, but what is done is done, yes?" she replied as she turned towards the Fleet's CO, a light frown still on her face.

"Haven't found a way of turning back the clock so far," said Reuben in a friendly tone, "but that is not why I am here"

"Always to the business with you, you will need to learn us older folks prefer to skirt the issue a bit"

"Gloria..." Started Reuben Thomes.

The soft sigh was the only sound she gave to her weariness so far, "Yes, yes, you are right. These are dire straits, though in a way it might be a blessing."

"Please illustrate," responded Reuben a bit forcefully.

"Why, the survival of the species. It is what this is all has been about, our species, our way of life, our culture. I doubt many have traveled as far out as we did" She added with some humor.

"Heh, now you are being dramatic." Reuben said, "You might be right, though it doesn't help us in the now. Not to mention it depends on how different this dimension is to our own"

"Ah, there is that" she slowly walked towards her desk "So, what are your plans? Has anybody mentioned the Global Protocols yet?"

"Not so far, but it is only a matter of time. For the time being we will remain here. I will be sending a few scouts to check some locations for us to settle if necessary however... at the moment I'd rather concentrate on how to break the news to the population."

"Hmmm..." she sat down on her desk, "Well there is no easy way to do it, especially given that we are, more or less stuck, if I am reading our little Fraga correctly. Personally I'd advise against giving faint hopes to the people."

"That much I figured, to be honest I was expecting something more substantial"

"Well, we are more or less independent, resource wise, so a rationing won't be needed short term, but..."

"The machines will last for years." he tried to be reassuring.

"Why yes, but the problem is long term, manpower, critical knowledge and the like."

"I am not going to discuss the Global protocols yet." he replied, forcefully.

"And it is a lovely idea, but we will have to discuss them eventually." she added with a grim finality.

"I know, but I... Not yet. I need to know first."

"Oh?"

"Like I said before, how close this is to our own dimension," Reuben said with a smile, "if there is a humanity, the protocols would be mostly non applicable, and if there is a UN or a UN like organization..." He knew he was stalling, and so did she, but it took a lot out of a man to order something like the Parentless Generation to happen again.

"That is... very optimistic of you." She replied carefully, "But you are right, we can wait a few months.

"Thank you. Now, regarding the speech..."

* * *

**GLK-2526 System,**

**May 18****th**** 2048 (Fleet time)**

**UNS **_**Freeman J. Dyson**_

The _Variation_ was one of the Dyson's most popular bars. Being close to the military complex made it insanely popular with the off duty personnel, particularly the surveyors, though some of the VF jockeys also made the place their home.

Some said the owner, Jessica Snipes, was in fact the granddaughter of the Legendary Rodger Mall, the owner of South Atalia's _Variation_ and that she had access to his own beer recipe but that made no sense, especially since the original Variation had been a cafe not a bar. Still it wasn't bad as rumors went.

Victor Enis was nursing his beer at the team's chosen table. It had been a very long day, fold and all, and he was feeling worn out.

While the survey job had pretty much died the moment the Zentradi arrived, they had had other jobs to keep them busy, like preparing the derelicts for the fold. He hadn't been too happy about it but orders were orders. After the fold it had been Civil Defense work, mostly. The fold had been particularly rough and there had been some damage to the civilian area, the Town as people called it, and they had been deployed to help keep the situation normal, or rather help turn it back to normal, but now, it was finally over, well not totally, but their share of the job was.

He was in his favorite bar, with his team and enjoying the break. That was all that mattered

"So boss, what do you think will happen now?" asked Astor Phink.

"Well, they will get in touch with HQ and then, dunno, guess we will go back to what we do, maybe offer us some downtime in some colony or something." he rambled.

"That sounds kinda good, though I doubt we will find any colonies in our neck of the woods"

"Stop being such a pessimist, Astor," said Marge Beuchamp, as she playfully slapped Astor in the arm. "Some of us," she gestured toward Victor, "are sensitive folks and hate to have our dreams crushed."

"Marge..." started Victor.

"Oh, you are no fun. Seriously..." she joked.

"Meh, would you guys keep the comedy act down? I am trying to look at the show" replied the fourth member of the team, Marcus Goto, while he watched the closest holoscreen.

"It's a re-run, Marcus." Deadpanned Marge.

"Yeah, well, it is" he defended, "but it is one of the good ones. Firebomber sings one of their best."

"Can't see what he actually sees in the show," stated Astor.

"Well, you know, fantastic monster from beyond attacking one of the colony fleets?" replied Marge

"That I get. The music part I don't. I mean, Firebomber is ok, but guitar commands? Who thought of that one." was Astor's reply.

"Hmmmm... maybe he wants to guitar the commands to his ride?" Mussed Victor aloud

"You know, that is a good possib..." Started Marge.

"You guys, quit it, I don't go picking at your likes." Pleaded Marcus.

"Ok, ok, you big boy, you are right" Came Marge's playful reply, she then turned towards Victor, "Chief, you know when the normal Broadcasting is going to resume? Some of us are missing our favorite shows here."

"Not a wizard here," he said taking a sip from his beer, "But give it a couple of days till we are back synced to the network."

It was then when the holoscreen changed to the Dyson Broadcasting System's symbol, much to Marcus dismay; it was in the middle of the song, after all.

"This is a fleetwide broadcast" stated an announcer, "Admiral Thomes will be addressing the fleet shortly."

The bar fell eerily quiet. It wasn't normal for the Admiral to address the fleet, after all.

And a few moments later it faded in to reveal a podium standing before a large UN Spacy flag. With Admiral Thomes Standing behind said podium side by side with Mayor Logan.

"People of the 53rd we have emerged from the ancient trap still strong and proud. However, there was a complication with the fold," stated the man, "We have misfolded to parts unknown, beyond the boundaries of our own reality."

"Did he just said what I think he did?" whispered Marge.

"I think so," whispered Marcus in return.

"Shush the both of you," came Victor's voice.

"It is my sad duty to report that this jump is unplotable, given the known circumstances of our flight. But even as I speak, research teams are busy charting this new reality. This goes above and beyond the operating protocols of our mission, but like always we will adapt, we will endure and we will succeed."

He paused and leaned towards the podium.

"We are now a colony mission. In the following days we will begin to screen our population in preparation for our new role. I will be asking a lot of all of us in the coming days, but keep in mind that at the moment we are the sum of our culture here."

"We have a monumental task before us, but I know we can do it, we have proved we can work under pressure, under the worst of circumstances, now let's show the cosmos the full length of our might and our resolve."

"This is only a setback for us all, in the end, we will prevail. That is all"

The screen once again transitioned back to the DBS logo and, a second latter, back to the show.

The Bar had seemingly fallen into silence with the exception of the odd holoscreen playing Totsugeki Love Heart.

"Well, shit..." was all that Astor could say.

For his part Victor had a reserved expression. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. Though that was probably what Global had thought, back then.

They were all drifters, in one way or another, few people that signed on long term missions had much in the way of bonds, or they were running from things or they were seeking adventure.

The group eyed one another for a few seconds before Marcus decided to return watching his reruns, the show had resumed and shit and all, he was going to enjoy it even if he was still out of sorts.

"This changes things," came Astor's voice, deep in disbelief.

"Yeah..." Agreed Marcus, still out of things.

"I'd never thought I'd agree with you two," stated Marge.

To that Victor snorted.

"Chief?"

"Look at you, acting like lost lambs. So yeah, we are in the ass end of nowhere and with no way back to boot, but we are alive. So there is that, and we are also together, so there is that too" he said emphatically.

"Well, yeah, but we aren't a colony fleet" complained Marge

"We are now," muttered Marcus from his vantage point.

"We always were, or else why do you think we have always been so self-sufficient? Sure we aren't in the same scale as one of the official colony fleets, but we have all that we need to restart anew, more than that now, I'd say."

"Maybe you should have gone into politics, bossman," interjected Marge, "that is enough to convince Me." she finally smiled

"But, but..." Astor seemed to stall.

"Now, calm down, Astor, and tell me how much this changes things for you, you personally." he paused for drama's sake, "don't tell me you were you planning on leaving us?"

"Well, no, I..."

"Hey and most of your family is here, right?" this time it was Marge adding her two cents

"Er, yeah." The younger man hesitated.

"There is that too," commented Victor. "Come on kid, it's all part of the adventure, and beats the hell out of the alternative."

"Heh," Astor finally laughed, "ok, so I can't beat you."

"Does that mean you will join us?" asked Marge with an impish smile

To that Astor laughed, "I guess I have no choice, do I?" asked the team's youngest member.

"No" chorused Victor and Marge, both of them smiling.

Victor turned towards Marcus; he was still making himself busy watching his rerun, half listening to the antics of his teammates.

"What about you Marcus?"

"Well, I guess old man Mutchinson is going to be happy I am gone, at least."

"Who?" they all asked.

"Heh, never mind that. Yeah, I'll join your little club, so what will we be drinking for?" he asked casually as he turned from his holo, "our new found job security?" he paused for a second, "because we are going to be drinking ourselves silly after this, right?"

Marge laughed, "of course we will, as to the toast..." she turned towards the chief, "So bossman, what are we going to drink to? Oh great pool of wisdom of ours?"

"Yeah, oh great pool of wisdom," bellowed somebody from the next table who seemed to be Martin Lawrence from team three.

Victor paused, and took a look around, maybe he hadn't been as quiet as he though as most of the bar was looking at him. Ok, so he had wanted to reassure his team, that he did, but now... Now it was time to man up and accept the consequences. Though next time he as going to sit his team in a booth. As far away from the rest as possible.

"What about the future? It's a bit cliched but..."

There was a mumble of agreement across the bar.

"Never thought you'd be an idealist, Victor," bellowed the normally quiet and laconic Barman, "but what the heck, next one is on the house, as long as we drink to the future." That was probably the first time those words had been said by Variation's Barman. That shut down the crowd, at least for a bit.

"Well, what are you waiting for," chided a voice from the crowd.

"Very well, Very well" Victor said standing up. "The future" he said raising his mug.

"The future," echoed the rest of the bar as they too raised their mugs, shot-glasses and steins.

* * *

**GLK-2526 System,**

**May 19****th**** 2048 (Ship time)**

**UNS **_**Freeman J. Dyson**_

Commander Eric Lestrade, CO of the Northampton UNS _Azure_ was worried.

It was not every day that you received a summons to a briefing from Commodore Duperiale And Admiral Thomes and it wasn't every day you had most of the First and Second Frigate Division's Captains in the same briefing room.

The First operated the Fleet's group of Block K Northamptons like the _Azure_. They were built for exploration, generally folded ahead of the fleet, functioning as trailblazers and scouts. Unlike the standard Block F, the Current fleet mainstay, the Block K was Twenty meters longer, had a more comprehensive sensor array, better shielded to boot, and slightly more efficient thrusters at the cost of armor, not that the Northampton carried much of it to begin with.

The Second, for its part was composed by the far more mundane Bock F, most of them brand new, even. But it was the workhorse of the fleet for a reason, armed with a mix of anti-ship, anti-aircraft and anti-missile batteries, it also was able to carry three full squadrons of Variable Fighters and still have the hangar space for a pair of assault shuttles and a landing Barge. The stealth systems, both active and passive, were second to none, making her a very hard to hit target. Of course that versatility came at a price, she wasn't the most armored ship in the fleet and had to rely on its pinpoint barriers and stealth systems for survival than the strength of its hull. In short, she was a tin can, a very hard to hit one, but a tin can none the less.

"Commander?" asked Johanna Stern, the _Azure'_s Executive officer, as she poked her Commanding officer.

"Uh, sorry 'bout that," he replied sheepishly, "was in deep thought."

"I thought so, sir." came the prompt reply.

In a way, it was to be expected. Things were no longer normal, not that working for the 53rd had been normal to begin with. Each formation had their own idiosyncrasies, their own rituals and customs. Even those as small as the 53rd were, in many ways, nations unto their own.

But after the misfold... it had made things official.

They were all sitting in one of the _Dyson_'s smaller briefing rooms, and even then it was enough room to sit all sixteen of them and then some. Only Captain and Executive officers in this meeting, with The Admiral and the Commodore standing near the podium and facing towards the crowd.

"Now that we are all here, let us commence," started Admiral Thomes. With that he gestured towards the commodore who had an active holoterminal.

Before them, the local cluster appeared.

"The details haven't been released to the public, yet, but will be in the next few days. To put it simple, we have jumped into somebody else's future. According to the experts nearly a millennium or so." He purposely paused there to let it sink. "However, the same experts believe this universe is very similar to our own so your mission is going to be two fold. First we need to identify possible colony locations; we have the maps and know a few good planets in the local area that should be acceptable, assuming our data holds. And that ties in with your secondary mission. To find out how close this universe is to our own."

"How close it is to our own, Admiral?" asked Commander Kurata Daichi. Captain of the UNS _Rapids_

"According to our specialists, very. So, before anybody asks, yes, we might be able to link up with the local humanity, if it exists. For all we know they already span the cosmos." he said with a dry chuckle.

"And if we are detected?" asked the captain of the _Viridian_, Commander Robert Palmer

"In that case it will be up to you to decide the best course of action, but do remember that this fleet's future depends on your choices." responded the Admiral.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are in a very unique and potentially difficult situation, I know that some of the targets will put you well outside of real time contact, as such you will have to rely on your own judgment, I know none of you are cowboys, so keep it that way."

There was a murmur of agreement across the room.

The Admiral cleared his throat. "Is that understood?"

"Yes Sir," the room echoed.

It was, yeah, it was a bit worse than a normal misfold, a millennium; though Eric, was a long long time, even if they would have been on their own future... he killed that train of thought. Now it wasn't the time,

"Very well," continued the admiral, "I see you get it. Commodore?" he said motioning towards Vifol Duperiale

"You will be operating in mixed pairs with overall command assigned to the Block K CO. This is a scout mission first and foremost. You will all be hitting several targets in your assigned course. First priority, as the admiral said, is to look for suitable planets for our colony base. Teams will be as follows: Alpha, UNS _Azure_ and UNS _Rapids; _Beta, UNS _Viridian_ and UNS _Coriandr;_ Gama, UNS _Glowworm_ and UNS _Rapier;_ and Delta UNS _Kodill_ and UNS _Flatline._"

Team Alpha, thought Lestrade as he eyed Commander Kurata who nodded in acknowledgment.

"As for the particulars of your assignments..."

And with that the Commodore launched into the details of the briefing.

* * *

**New Albuquerque System**

**June 3****rd**** 2048 (Fleet Time)**

**UNS **_**Azure**_

Early afternoon, Ship time, found Commander Lestrade in his ready room, sitting before his desk and going through a large pile of paperwork, of a virtual variety but still paperwork.

The ready room was small, after all the UNS _Azure_ was only a Frigate and even with her 270m of length, space was at a premium. The decorations were sparse, the Seal of the UN Space on the desk, a few pictures of the _Azure_, cruiser shots as some called them, the Flag of the UN in a corner by his desk, perhaps the biggest prize, holographic windows to the outside. It wasn't quite the same as an observation deck, but ships as small as her weren't rated with one to begin with, at least not a real one.

The mission itself had been mostly routine so far, see a planet, compare it with the data they had, report back and move on. To make things interesting, their data had been valid, so far. It was eerie.

Then about six days ago, they had made it to New Albuquerque. It was one of the main spots of the journey, a naturally inhabitable planet, if dryer than earth with water covering only 50% of its surface and even less freshwater. It had one satellite, smaller than Earth's moon, that had also served as a fleet node base in the elsewhere they had come from. It was one of the leading candidates for colonization in the here and now.

There hadn't been a fleet base in the now, which was a letdown, but there had been habitation which had been a bit of a surprise. It was far from the New Albuquerque that existed in the ship's database, if anything it looked like a backwater. Still they hadn't been able to determine a backwater of what or of whom. Emissions from the planet were either codified or encoded in an unknown format. His people was working on it, but it was slow going, in part it was because they were still lurking the outer system, but orders had been clear, and while moving closer might have let them hear some shortwave and other less codified emissions, it hadn't gone to the point, not yet.

It was then when a chime broke the relative silence of the room, announcing somebody at his door.

Quickly looking at a small holoscreen, he saw the form of his XO, standing in attention before the closed door of his ready room.

A quick click latter, the door opened letting Lt. Commander Joanna Stern into the room while Eric Stood up to face his subordinate.

"Skipper" She gave a quick salute.

"Ms. Stern," he replied with a quick salute of his own, "any situations?"

"No sir, just wanted to discuss the bogeys," she replied with a slight nod.

That had been a cause for alarm; four days prior two objects defolded, or rather FTLed out, near the star's Zenith Null-gravity point and disgorged a quartet of parasite crafts, then begun deploying some sort of appendage, a solar sail of sorts, if remaining immobile at the Zenith. The parasites, on the other hand, were somewhat small, but fast, though slower than his _Azure_ at any rate, and were all heading towards New Albuquerque, or however the locals called it.

It had been puzzling. Why had the starships remained at the star's Zenith point? Why had they defolded there, why not near the planet? Why they remained at the Zenith instead of jumping again or even slowboating towards the planet and why had they deployed solar sails?

There were quite a few theories going around, but none could explain the whole situation.

"So, Chief Rogal made a breakthrough?" he said referring to the Azure's senior engineer.

"In part, he has gone over the sensor data available to us and is convinced that it is a fold signature of some sort, but very inefficient he said."

"So does he think they are running long range folds?" he said frowning. It was hard to think of a fold so extreme it needed to use such a large natural weak point like the Zenith of a star, but not impossible, though the energy cost alone would be boggling. Still, it was all pure conjecture so far.

"It is an option; the other is that they are limited to the easy points." Joanna said.

"Doesn't explain why they didn't use the Lagrangian points, then." He paused for a second, "for all we know it is a standard operating procedure, a customs stop."

"A bit far from the customs office." she replied.

"True," he scratched his chin, "but some people might be nervous about having a multi-kiloton starship nearby. Do keep in mind we are rather sure this is a backwater of some sort. Besides, bureaucracies hardly make sense."

"I'll agree with that, but... I am concerned with the increase in emissions from the planet itself."

"Why would you be, it might be the big event of the year for the folks planetside."

"Careful sir, you are anthropomorphizing the aliens a bit too much."

"Well, it is not like we know many aliens, and the ones that we do know..." for all their alieness, Zentradi were human-like and to the point that they were both compatible and capable of producing viable offspring, Something that, like many thing, pointed towards an Earth-Protoculture link sometime in the past.

Hell, there were even rumors that the UNS had found something back on Earth, in the South Pacific to that end, but it was just a rumor, a legend even.

"A point," she conceded.

"So what do you think," he asked.

"Don't have a formed opinion, not yet. But I can't avoid feeling something is off."

At that, Eric Lestrade grew serious, "you mean besides our own situation?"

Joanna nodded.

Eric sighed but before he could continue the comm. panel chimed.

"Lestrade here," he said activating the intercom.

A small holoscreen materialized showing the watch officer, Edgar Bloomfield. The CIC could be seen behind.

"Sir, this is Lieutenant Bloomfield, we have broken the encoding." the Watch officer paused for a second, "you need to see this, sir."

Eric and Joanna changed glanced and nodded. The planet had emitted a considerable amount of EM radiation, but was emitted in an unknown format, maybe even under a encryption, so he had detailed a team to try and crack it.

"Understood, Commander Stern and I are on our way to the CIC."

* * *

As they entered the CIC, Eric noticed Bloomfield standing near the door and quickly exchanged salutes.

"Ensign Taylor," he motioned towards the comm station, "has done a terrific job" he said as they walked towards the station

"As expected," Lestrade admitted.

Ensign Samantha Taylor was young, then again all ensigns looked young to Eric these days, but she had a definite preternatural talent with computers, it had been an easy choice to assign her as head of the team cracking the encoding.

She was looking halfway to exhaustion, probably had been pulling all-nighters to try and prove herself to the command.

"Ensign?"

"Skipper," she saluted.

"Go ahead, Ensign," replied the Lieutenant, "Play the file."

"Yes Sir," she enthusiastically replied. "This is one is four days old."

With that one small holoscreen materialized. Inside a woman could be seen... human from what he could judge, she was also very attractive, and was speaking... English? The accent was a bit strange, actually it was very strange and he couldn't place it, sharing a glance with Stern told her she didn't either.

The woman was standing before scenery of some sort and to be honest, Eric Lestrade thought, giving a newscast.

"In following News, the Local authorities have yet to respo..."

"Thank you Ensign," replied Commander Lestrade. "You have done well." this changed things; he thought with a mental chuckle, it was as earth shattering as the misfold itself. Real live humans that spoke English of all things. The accent was, again, a bit strange, actually it was very strange and he just couldn't place it, sharing a glance with Stern told her she didn't either.

Sill, things were definitely looking up. He shared a glance with his XO and nodded knowingly.

"Thank you sir." the Ensign said

"This changes things." Lestrade said to Stern, with a small chuckle "seems the Admiral was right about that, huh"

"Yeah, Skipper, it does. And you are right, he probably expected it too." she paused for a second, "should we contact the _Dyson_ about this?"

"Not just yet." he responded, then turned towards Taylor, "Ensign, start monitoring the local networks, see what we can learn about the locals," and then towards Bloomfield, "Lieutenant, detail a team to the task, I want 24/7 coverage and a full in depth analysis. This one is all yours."

"Thank you, sir. I won't let you down, sir." he replied with all the enthusiasm a junior officer could muster. They exchanged salutes and he turned to leave, with Stern in tow.

He had been walking towards the exit when he heard Ensign Taylor "Sir! You need to see this."

He paused for a second, and considered a chastisement, but tone spoke of urgency and decided to play along. At least for the moment. There would be a talk on proper protocol later, though; He shared a glance with both his XO and with the watch officer.

"Very well, Ensign, show me."

The holoscreen reappeared though instead of a beautiful woman standing before bluescreen scenery, there was only a symbol, perhaps the station's own.

"...of Emergency has been declared for the Wynn's Cradle and Landing regions. A pirate incursion is imminent. All citizens are encouraged to seek shelter. I repeat, a State of Emergency..."

Ah, that was the other shoe dropping, a part of Eric Lestrade's mind mused, so that is how it feels.

"Shit," he muttered. His eyes wandered towards the plot table, showing the four bogies in detail, they were very close to the planet, already in their final decel phase. A part of him knew he could dodge the issue, as they weren't his people and he was under orders to watch first. But letting a pirate band rampage through a continent was a poor way to start a relationship. Assuming the Admiral would go for it.

It would also go against his own morals.

"Are we sure this isn't a prank; a War of the Worlds scenario?" he asked the Ensign.

She paused for a few seconds second as she worked her station "No sir," she finally said, "it is on every channel I can get to, if it is a prank, Sir, it's a very good one"

Commander Lestrade nodded.

"What is our comm lag?" he asked. Even FTL comms weren't instantaneous. They were very, very fast, but given the distances involved, lag was inescapable when dealing with interstellar distances. Of course, it was still possible to be in instantaneous contact even a few dozen Light-years out, but...

"Less than an hour, sir, but..." replied the Executive officer, but, she left unsaid, between sending the data and waiting for the reply from the Dyson, it would be too late to stop the raid itself.

Eric grimaced, so not good news, he thought. "Contact them, send the overall situation, then contact the _Rapids_, Relay the info to them as well and request a comm channel to Commander Kurata."

"Roger, Skipper," replied the Ensign.

* * *

Daichi Kurata was not a happy man when he learned of the situation. He was not happy with the pirates or with Eric's actions. He could understand them, though, and would obey them, but...

"We won't be able to catch up with the parasites before they enter the atmosphere," Stated Lestrade with certain regret, "so we will go after the Motherships first."

"Are you sure you want to do this, Eric?" asked Kurata, respectfully

"I..." Eric started.

"I understand your situation," Daichi said, interrupting his friend, "but I think you are letting your baggage cloud your judgment."

"The question is, then, will you counterman my order?" asked Lestrade.

"Hm. No, not this time." was Kurata's hesitant reply

"Then..." started Eric.

"But," interrupted Daichi, "Shouldn't we at least contact the planet first? We could be butting in, after all."

"You... I" struggled Eric, "you... are probably right." He sighed, "Sorry if I am being a bit gung-ho at the moment." he paused for a minute, rethinking his plan "Let's do this, I will take the _Azure_ to the lunar L1 point and contact the locals; if needed I will remain behind to assist against the Pirates."

"That might put the _Azure_ at risk."

"Maybe," admitted Eric, "But you are right, we need to get the Okay of the locals and at this distance..." they were roughly 40 AU from the planet, there would be a lag of over five hours for any sub-light communications towards the planet. "Besides, Daichi, you have seen the sensor data we have on the parasites and the Starships, They shouldn't pose much of a problem."

Daichi sighed, "Shouldn't is not a good word to use in these circumstances." he paused debating his response, "Very well, what do you want me to do while you go contact the natives?" he finally asked.

"Be ready to defold at close range of the Starships. I will transfer some of my marines and their shuttles to you." he scratched his chin, "if we go ahead, we'll go with the standard operating procedure; a couple of warning shots and demand their surrender. If they don't, disable Target Alpha. Bah, you know the drill" Alpha was the larger of the two at about 650m in length, though it seemed to be in a worse state of disrepair. Telescopes had seen different shades of the hull, signifying patches at the very least, while Beta, was about half its size, and was in a far better state.

"I am not sure if that is the best of ideas, Eric," he added, "the Pirates on the ground might go ballistic" Lestrade nodded, it was a concern, cut off from escape, a raid could be turned into a hostage situation, or even a conquest. Though given the size of the parasites, the pirate force had to be too small for that.

"True, but they might also surrender. On any case our options are limited at this time, outside of blowing them up as they enter atmo..."

"That would make for a bad day for anybody beneath," completed Daichi.

"Yes, it would. Hence we will have to do it the old fashioned way"

"The old fashioned way, huh" Kurata scratched his chin, "I can transfer one of my VF Squadron, call it a fair trade for the marines." offered Kurata with an impish smile.

"That... might come in handy." Eric nodded, "Yes, consider that offer taken."

"Excellent, I will order the Rangers to transfer ships ASAP. But," Kurata looked up from his PDA, "Eric, if this goes wrong, even if this goes right..." Daichi said diplomatically.

"I know and I will take full responsibility," admitted Lestrade, "but I can't sit idle and let this happen."

"I understand," Kurata finally said.

"There is one more thing, if we do move against the Starships, I want them alive, Daichi, Especially the ranking officers."

"If they are anything like the pirates back home, most of then they would be with the raiding party"

"Most of them, yes, but you never know. And it would make our job easier"

That he agreed, even if he found it unlikely. But t was, given the circumstances, the best plan they could put together in such a short time frame.

"I'll fold in as soon as the Rangers are on board. Get your people ready and..." Lestrade seemed to pause for a second, "Good luck old friend"

"Same to you, Eric, same to you."

* * *

**New Albuquerque System**

**June 3****rd**** 2048 (Fleet Time)**

**UNS **_**Azure**_

"Defold Complete" the voice of the Navigator was calm and collected.

"Very well, Status!"

"Detecting a small bogey, Grid quadrant Forty Seven, elevation Zero Five. Classifying target as Gamma," came the voice of the sensor officer. "Sir, it is one of the four parasites."

The holotable switched to the location almost immediately showing a small bulbous thing.

"Status of the bogey?"

"In geosynchronous orbit, so far oblivious," the sensor officer replied as she worked her station "Data indicates it is less than two thousand tonnes and well under a hundred meters in length. No match in the warbook." The latter was expected, but damn it was small. Now why was it remaining in orbit?

"Have a firing solution drafted against it, in the meantime, let's contact the locals."

"Roger."

**Wynn's Roost System**

**September 23****rd**** 3040**

**Wynn's Court area, Rook City.**

Wynn's Roost was dying; it had been dying for a long time, a slow death. Ever since they seceded from the Outworlds Alliance a hundred and seventy-two years prior, they had been dying. No, they had been dying before that, since the Great Trade Houses left for the Alliance core, which had been one of the causes for the secession, then came the great raid of 2890 that more or less shattered its back. Oh, the militia succeeded in pushing off and punishing the pirates, but the damage ended up being too great.

A Pyrrhic victory in the best of cases.

At the rate they were going they might last one or two more raids before what was left of the militia was expended.

Assuming they survived this raid.

Robert Fenwood, Commanding General of the Wynn's Roost Militia, was in the forward operating post in Rook City. It was a pretentious title for a position that held less power each year.

He was worried it had finally arrived, the final raid.

He had enough boots on the ground, but painfully few heavy equipment, only a handful of man portable SRMs, a few Dozen towed pieces he was digging into the city plus a few combat vehicles, he was also digging in for urban warfare, and perhaps four BattleMechs if they could make the stubborn _Grey and Angry_ move.

On the air he had two AeroSpace fighters, it should have been twelve, the ones that survived the Great raid of 2890, but time, neglect, outright sabotage, and lack of critical parts had ended up with the need to cannibalize one bird, one at the time, to keep the others flying. It was a losing proposition, but traders rarely came their way anymore and their own ASF manufacturing plant was a 170 year old crater in the ground. He did have two squadrons of atmospheric fighters that they could barely keep supplied, but they were no match against ASFs and using them in that role was sending people to the slaughter.

The 'Mech situation was even worse, of the original two companies only a lance remained, but none of them were originally militia machines, they were salvage, painfully reconstructed along the years, FrankenMechs, as some people called them, or borderline so. But again it had taken several machines to keep one going.

It had been years since a friendly trader had stumbled upon them; it was as if they had been forgotten by the Galaxy.

Two Unions, a Leopard CV and a Mule. Two 'Mech carriers, an ASF carrier and a cargo ship. It wasn't big in the grand scheme of things, but for Wynn's Roost Militia, it seemed like an insurmountable obstacle.

The Unions and the Mule were, according to the tracking station, heading towards the Magrotta plains, some twenty miles off the city, But the Leopard had remained in orbit, probably waiting for Fenwood's few ASFs and conventionals. They were going to be disappointed.

"General, sir," came the haphazardly salute of one of his junior officers, a kid far too young and far too untrained to be in the field, but... the boy looked winded and worried. Then again, he had just run his way here from the comm tent.

"At ease, son," he tried the paternalistic approach, hoping it would help calm the younger officer.

"Sorry sir, it is the colonel, he says," he gulped air greedily; "he says you need to come to the tent, something's happened."

Robert Fenwood was out of breath and staring at Colonel Kobake in disbelief. Trying to puzzle what his left hand man had just said.

"They said 'Spacy'?" asked Fenwood.

"Yeah, that's how they identified themselves, United Nations Spacy." replied the Colonel.

Fenwood began pacing the tent. He remembered the United Nations from lessons long ago, but it was mostly a footnote, a sorta predecessor to the Western Alliance. Was it perhaps the OWA Returned? A part of his mind wondered.

On any case this was the cavalry in the proverbial nick of time and that bugged him, it was too easy, too neat but... he didn't had much of a choice.

"And they are asking if we need help?"

"Yes."

"Well we do," Fenwood stated, "Tell them we are in dire need of help, give them the pirates LZ," he paused, "and tell them to hurry."

* * *

**Wynn's Roost System**

**September 23****rd**** 3040**

**SS **_**Rockhound, **_**Zenith Point.**

Buster Devries had been sleeping when it happened. He preferred to sleep though raids, that way he wouldn't have to hear the gory details till after the crews returned. And even then, he'd rather not listen to them at all.

Then the ship shook, taking Buster from his sleep.

He was still groggy when one of the deckhands came to get him. Urgent the boy had said. Good thing he slept in his clothes these days.

His quarters were close to the bridge itself, he was still the captain if only technically, so the trip took only a few minutes.

"What... what happened" he asked as he cleared the access hatch.

"We... we had a new jumper, we think" added Esther Lowell, pale-faced. She was also part of her original crew and about as happy as he was with the current state of affairs. Not like they could do much and at least they were still alive and whole.

"Show me."

The holotable showed one contact at very close range, perhaps 200 Km, looking unlike any JumpShip he had ever seen, delta shaped, about the size of the _Rockhound _but the configuration was all wrong for a jumper, it had no docking points that he could see, no attached DropShips and he really couldn't see how one would be able to fit a KF core in it.

"They gave us an ultimatum and..."

"Out with it woman," he replied, impatiently

"Shot us with some sort super PPC across the bow" she added worriedly, "I think it is a WarShip." she added hushedly. WarShips were a legend these days, tales told by spacers to frighten children into obedience. But... but Esther was not one into fear-mongering. And that frightened him deeply.

He turned towards the Claw's "bodyguards". The damned bastard had assigned them to his ship to keep them "safe". They all looked so young, then again people grew fast in the Periphery, you had to, and were looking nervous to boot.

"Any word from the _Elisai_?" He asked about the Tramp that had become an ever present traveling companion since that day. He had to wonder where the Pirates had gotten their hands on a Tramp; those things were very rare these days. Still given how the _Elizai_ looked, it was probably a leftover of better times, like most things these days a part of his mind noted.

She shook her head, "None at us, anyway, but a lot of expletives towards the new arrivals."

"That Giskard is a hothead," that was nothing new, their new friends had a laundry list of defects. Then again, it might be the part that they were now "friends" whether they had wanted or not that chaffed the most with him.

"That he is, but what are we going to do?"

"I... I don't know" he admitted, as much as he wanted to surrender, he doubted the bodyguards would let him, not without having Giskard throwing the towel first "But contact me with Giskard, I'd rather not get shot today."

It was not to be, as Giskard Rovan, the Captain of the _Elisai_, chose that moment to open fire on the two contacts.

The _Elisai_, unlike most JumpShips, was armed with a dozen Laser batteries, a sign that the good old days hadn't been that good either. Probably a different kind of suck, Buster thought.

"It's returning fire," Said one of the younger techs, in disbelief. People normally didn't fire at JumpShips these days, even the _Elisai's_ broadside had been mostly a warning as none of the beams came close to the strange ship.

The vessel, Buster would learn latter it was called the UNS _Rapids_, had returned fire, with just one shot and from its secondary batteries at that. It struck the _Elisai_ towards the stern, and simply boiled though the thin armored belt of the Elisai and then kept going, killing its reactor and eventually emerging from the other side of the ship, all in the fraction of a second.

Still between the pinpoint accuracy and the firepower, Buster could only surmise Esther had been right. WarShip.

"What the..." muttered Buster.

"Sir, they... they are repeating the Ultimatum, and giving us Five minutes before they fire again," Replied the comm. Tech in disbelief.

"How is the _Elisai_?" Buster said in automatic.

"She is drifting and operating on battery power."

He looked at the young 'Bodyguards' "There is no escaping this, kid," he said to the ranking one, he was called Marcus, he thought. The boy nodded. He was a pirate, yes, but he wasn't suicidal, not when standing next to heavily armed vessels with no compulsion against torching jumpers.

Seeing Marcus' reaction, Buster made his choice. Not like there was any other one open to him at the moment.

"Call them, we surrender." he said, worried of what the future would bring.

Five minutes later, there were at least a dozen small craft en route towards his _Rockhound_ and the ailing _Elisai_, bulbous things, probably boarding craft of some sort.

He took a glance towards the _Elisai_ and frowned.

At some point, he was going to have to explain to these folks it wasn't their party and they weren't really pirates, probably soon, in the meantime, he turned towards the lead bodyguard. He was a kid from the ass end of a periphery world turned pirate kingdom, Onverwacht, if he remembered correctly.

"This is over for us Marcus," he said in a neutral tone, gambling on the boy's name, "will you put down your arms as well?" he asked, politely

"I... yeah, I will," he turned towards his men "you heard the man, boys, secure the weapons and put them back in the armory, we don't want to piss off these folks. At all." Marcus said to the rest of his team.

In the end it was a good decision, the heavily armored marines that stepped into the ship ten minutes later wouldn't have been bothered by the slugthrowers too much and not only did their guns looked deadly and in good repair, they seemed to know how to handle them far better than Marcus and his people did.

* * *

**New Albuquerque System**

**June 3****rd**** 2048 (Fleet Time)**

**UNS **_**Azure**_

"Sound to General Quarters" Demanded Lestrade.

"Understood sir, sounding General Quarters" acknowledged XO Stern, as she worked her own station.

A moment later the alert klaxons came to life as the PA system called the crew to their battlestations. Meanwhile within the ship, bulkheads closed and Damage Control teams rushed to their stand by locations as the _Azure_ prepared for battle.

"Range to Gamma" Lestrade barked.

"Target Gamma is within eight thousand kilometers, that is eight, zero, zero, zero kilometers." They were well within their weapons range.

"Fire a warning shot and demand surrender," Lestrade said to his crew. "No point on this being bloody," no point on drawing it out either, he thought.

"Understood," replied the gunnery officer, 2nd Lieutenant Vask Pascal. A few seconds later the Number Two turret turned, focused itself, and fired a particle beam towards the Parasite.

Immediately thereafter, Ensign Taylor, the comm. officer, began transmitting the ultimatum.

"Sir, no response so far," came her voice moments later.

"They are deploying strike craft of some sort." Interrupted the sensor officer, "I am reading six, that is Zero Six, crafts all under than 50 tones. They seem to be heading in our general direction. Reclassifying them as Gamma-one through six."

"We did give them a clue where we were" Said Commander Lestrade. He turned towards the gunnery officer, "Take Gamma out."

"Roger," was all the reply 2nd Lieutenant Pascal needed to give. In moments his hands were dancing over his control, while outside, turrets One and Two shifted. Of the armament he had at his disposal, Pascal had chosen the the two 72mm beam guns turrets that composed the Azure's primary battery.

A second later he fired.

The results this time were far more spectacular. Gamma was hit in the nose and amidships, the beams completely punching though the parasite's limited armor with the same ease the Rapids' secondaries had gone through the far larger starship.

This, however, was main battery fire. The damage was catastrophic, virtually snapping the vessel in two and shattering the bow in one simple action. What remained of Gamma, the engine section, was consumed by secondary explosions, less than ten seconds later, leaving only a small trail of debris, and a blackened tail fin, in its wake.

"Repeat the message, Ensign" Said Lestrade to Taylor, and then he turned towards Pascal "I want a firing solution on those six bogies."

"Understood," she once again repeated the unconditional surrender message, and again the only reply was silence.

"Sir, Gamma-One through Six are turning towards the planet."

"I tried," the commander muttered to himself, "we can't let them go. Lieutenant, take them out." he said to Pascal

With a nod, and a roger, Pascal's fingers danced again over his terminal, this time he chose the secondary battery, four 58mm Twin beam turrets, if weaker than the primary battery, they made up for it with an excellent refire rate that translated into a very good for anti-fighter duty, especially at range, second only to the CIWS batteries.

Due to positioning, only Three and Five were able to zero in the incoming bogies.

That was more than sufficient.

It was a pity, thought Pascal; they were flying in a straight course, no dodging, no erratic patterns. He almost felt insulted. Shaking his head he opened fire.

It was a massacre, the relativistic particles of the beam guns simple tore through the armored shells of the fighters, gutting them completely. In all, it took them five seconds for them to die. They probably never knew what hit them.

"Good work Lieutenant," came Lestrade's voice. He then turned towards the Navigator, "get us down there, ASAP, Mr. Yoshino."

* * *

**Wynn's Roost System**

**September 23****rd**** 3040**

**Wynn's Court area, Rook City.**

Robert "Claw" Santiguez was beginning to worry. Things should have been easy, get in, grab the loot and head back home to Onverwacht.

Simple and easy, especially given how weak the militia at the roost had become in recent years.

But in the span of two hours he had lost contact with his JumpShips and the Leopard _Meriva,_ and worse, he was only now ready to deploy his forces. Somebody was going to get it, and soon.

Before losing contact, the idiot, Rozencreuz had claimed the JumpShip that had jumped-in at a Pirate point a while ago was demanding his surrender.

A JumpShip demanding surrender of a DropShip? Hah, that was a good one.

He had ordered Rosencreuz to do a flyover of that jumper then; though the _Meriva's_ captain had seemed hesitant, claiming that the jumper was armed. Bah, idiot, he thought, even if the Jumpship was armed it was all the way to the pirate point. And six ASF should have been more than enough to cow it into surrender, adding a third JumpShip to his fleet.

Of course lack of further contact with the _Meriva_ worried him, if the jumper had some droppers of its own...

No, even if it had droppers there would have been a follow up of sorts. This was something different. To him, the situation stunk, but he wasn't completely sure why. Maybe that idiot Giskard trying to pull a coup? Were he and Rosencreuz working together?

That didn't quite make sense, but it wasn't the issue at hand. No, now the issue he should be worrying about was Rook City and how he was going to take the said city, break its militia and see if there was anything of worth to take, then, well, then he'd see.

He was still about five clicks off the suburbs of Rook city when it happened.

"This is the UNS _Azure_, to the pirate forces on the planet. Lay down your arms and surrender, or be destroyed. This is your only warning." the voice was feminine, but stern, young too.

"Fuck boss, look at that" said Inigo Lopez over the radio.

Claw turned his Mech toward Inigo's _Hunchback_, only to see the Mech's right arm pointing upwards. Curiously, he followed the 50 ton machine's arm and saw something impossible.

There was a DropShip? No, it was way too large for a dropper, but that wasn't it, but that it was hanging there, simply defying gravity. Maybe it was an airship? He had read that some of those got real big, back in the sphere...

"The fuck..."

He felt angry; they dared to tell him to surrender? Even if they had a flying ship they could go to hell. He switched his machine to anti air mode.

"Fire on that shit, you idiots" he snarled in the comms as he pulled the trigger.

His _Awesome_, Night Glory, was armed with three Kreuss PPCs, formidable weapons that fired atoms at fantastical speeds, some called it man made lightning, others called them the energy boomstick, and Claw was amongst the latter. At the range, perhaps ten kilometers, and to a target so large, he couldn't miss. He didn't, but then the ship seemed to glow brighter and nothing else, not even a scorch mark, could be seen.

"What are you waiting for, fire!" he demanded as he let off another volley.

A moment later the members of his lance began firing on the impossible machine, to the same effect as the _Night Glory _initial volley.

* * *

Lt. Commander Jonah "Snoopy" Ridden was anxious. He had been sitting in his VF for the better part of two hours waiting for the go ahead sign. He felt like a race horse before the race, and in many ways he was. This was going to be his first op as a squadron commander since they upgraded to the 171. The _Nightmare Plus_ was not exactly unpopular, but certainly not as well loved as the _Excalibur_. He had flown both and it felt a step back. It might have been cheaper, and easier to pilot, but between the lack of super parts and the lower performance he had to wonder what the hell the people at HQ were sniffing. Still it was better than the T-bolt that most of the fleet was still flying.

Last update had come a few minutes ago, apparently the Pirate force heading from their LZ towards the city. They were going to put a stop to that advance before things turned into urban fighting, something about preserving the locals. That was okay for him, he didn't fancy fighting in a city either. Of course their knowledge of the pirate force was minute and command wanted to see how their VFs measured, or at least that was the idea. He wasn't too happy about being used as a guinea pig, but orders were orders and he wasn't one to back down from a fight, either.

"Lt. Commander, you are go," said the feminine voice of the _Azure's_ air controller.

"You heard the lady, Death Walkers," he said in the squadron network, "let's go."

And with that he jumped out of the _Azure's _hangar.

The situation was a bit odd; the Pirate Destroids had stopped their advance and were firing on the _Azure_, though between the distance, the CIWS, and the Barrier system, the odds of them doing anything to the Northampton class Frigate were remote.

At least it kept them occupied, though that one wouldn't last. He was going to make sure of that, he though evilly.

Half the squadron had been deployed as battroids, while the other half were launching as fighters.

The facilities on the _Azure_ weren't exactly conductive to a magnum launch, not with an additional squad on board, so they had to improvise a bit.

Still, it was a good mix. He checked that his wingman, Maurice "Shotgun" Lafabre, was in his four o'clock and the switched his machine to GERWALK, or Ground Effective Reinforcement of Winged Armament with Locomotive Knee-joint, mode and darted towards the enemy. GERWALK was a hybrid of Battroid and Fighter, giving you superb speed and agility, especially close to the ground. It also made for a dandy way of landing or skimming a meter over the ground at just under sub-sonic speeds.

He checked the radar and saw the closest destroid, it had stopped firing at the Azure and was frozen.

Ah, he thought, probably sees us, or rather doesn't. One of the most effective features on the VF-171 was the updated active stealth system; it rendered you invisible to most known forms of detection but the MK1 eyeball.

He grinned and fired a spread of eight micro-missiles from the hull mounted Bifors BML-02S launchers at the machine and twisted his VF into a side strafe as he opened up with his HOWARD GU-14B gunpod. He saw the dents and bulges beginning to form in the enemy armor as the missiles hit. But to his surprise, as the fireballs dissipated, the machine was still upright and had begun firing towards his general direction with its arm mounted cannon followed shortly by a spread of missiles of its own.

The cannon rounds went wide, and the missiles were unguided, or more likely spoofed by his ECM, and were easy enough to dodge with a deft movement, but it took his experience not to freeze in surprise, something that, in the battlefield was downright deadly.

Quickly he backtracked and switched to the Battroid configuration. The configuration turned his machine into an 15 m tall humanoid, originally intended to fight full size Zentradi, it also activated the SWAG energy conversion armor system to its full potential, considerably strengthening his machine's armor, and opened up with all his payload, concentrating on the target's already damaged frontal armor.

Seconds later, Shotgun joined the fray, concentrating his fire on the same machine.

The pirate Destroid was tough, but the weight of fire Snoopy and Shotgun were bringing against it was considerable, not to mention accurate; three seconds later the armor gave up, there was a breach, a bright flash and then the Destroid fell boneless to the ground.

"Tough little shit; it was, eh, boss?" Shotgun drawled over the comms.

"Not so little, Shotgun." At fifty tons, if he were to believe his own computer, that thing outmassed them both, and it made sense, it had survived quite the barrage. "Give me a sec, gonna switch to the squadron," Snoopy replied.

A second latter he had set the radio to broadcast to the main channel, making sure all fighters got it.

"This is Walker Lead to all units, be advised, these jokers can take a killing, and then some. Don't be shy to let them have it, actually consider it an order." Snoopy stated.

He then gunned his machine, sprinting towards the nearest Destroid present.

Next kill, he thought.

* * *

"Be advised, there are four fighters inbound at heading 230, airspeed is Mach one point seventy" stated the _Azure_ Air controller, "Range is just under 20 km."

"See them _Azure_," responded Robert "Hacksaw" Eisenach, the CO of the second Squadron, the Filibusters.

While the Deathwalkers, the Redeemers and the Rapids' Red Rangers, messed it on the ground, Eisenach had remained as reserve and as air support. Seeing the fighter's contrails he was now glad of that. He gunned his _Thunderbolt_, still in fighter mode, and moved towards the approaching enemies.

The VF-11 _Thunderbolt_ was obsolete, even with the E series upgrade that had upped the engine, added a pinpoint barrier system and upgraded the avionics suite; they were under armed and under armored. She was a good bird, but her time was coming to a close.

At least he had the new atmospheric Super Packs outfitted.

Those were a thing of beauty. It considerably increased the Tbolt's thrust and added eight micro missile launchers. It wasn't the same as having built in launchers like the Nightmare Plus did, but it was better than nothing.

Still, it was not the kind of bird Hacksaw would take against unknowns, though things on the ground seemed to be going okay, in the air things were always less forgiving.

In any case they'd have to make up inferior machinery with skill and guile.

"Filibuster flight, let's go bust some things" he said with some bravado.

"Roger," came the prompt reply from his squadron. They were good kids.

As they approached, two of the fighters broke formation and accelerated at near Mach 3.4 speeds.

His computer assigned the name of _Sparrow_ to the accelerating fighters, at thirty tons it was nearly three times heavier than his own VF, more compact too, and yet it could move at similar speeds.

Still, he had to credit the bastards, even as outnumbered as they were, they gunned on.

As they approached, the lead _Sparrow_ fired a trio of lasers, wattage unknown, at him. They went wide, but not by much.

Cursing, he fired one of the high agility missiles his VF-11 was carrying in its underwing hard points and opened the thruster fully. If the Sparrow wanted a high speed dogfight, it was going to get one.

Behind him, Paintball, Filibuster 2, wasn't so lucky, as a volley fired by the second _Sparrow_ hit him in the wing nearly tearing it off and seriously damaged the port engine.

Grimacing, Paintball cursed at the pin point barrier and then pulled the ejection lever.

First blood went to the Pirates. It was not the most auspicious of beginnings.

Hacksaw scowled at the loss of his wingman and let loose a volley of missiles from his PACK.

The still approaching enemy fighter had tried to dodge his previous missile by entering evasives, but the missile was far more agile and faster than the _Sparrow_, the end result had been foregone, with the exception that it had survived the encounter. It wasn't even trailing smoke, though his computer was signaling some damage detected on the control surfaces and was now traveling slightly under Mach 2.

Now, closer in, the computer report was a bit more accurate, the Sparrow seemed to be armed with, at least, three lasers of some sort, one on each wing, and the third one on the nose. Structurally, it had swept wings, not quite delta, with a pair of canards near the cockpit. It also seemed to have a fuckton of armor.

In the meantime, his second volley continued to approach the lead _Sparrow_.

Stunned by the missile strike, or maybe surprised by the size of the volley coming its way, the _Sparrow's_ pilot failed dodge this made the next salvo's worth of damage more noticeable, as part of the left wing seemed to come off.

One yay for the E upgrade, though Hacksaw.

Nevertheless the _Sparrow_ was still in the air, limping, and trailing smoke now, but still in the fight.

That surprised Hacksaw, these fighters were really tough. But now they were very close to one another.

With a curse at the Sparrow's designers, he switched to battroid, he felt the G forces slamming him into his couch, and fired both his head mounted Mauler Pulse Laser and his gunpod at the ailing pirate craft.

This time the results were a bit more satisfactory, with both the Mauler and the gunpod's burst finding their mark, and seconds later an escape pod ejected from the cockpit as the plane entered a death spiral.

Hacksaw immediately switched back to fighter and started hunting the second Sparrow.

He found it shortly chasing after Filibuster 4, Nestor "Craps" Vazquez, while it was, in turn, chased by Filibusters 3, 5 and 6.

It was already trailing smoke, but so was Craps' machine. A moment later something exploded in Craps' VF and the variable fighter simply disintegrated.

It didn't help the _Sparrow_ much, since, just at that moment a massed volley from its pursuing fighters caught up with him.

The _Sparrow_ was tough, but it wasn't tough enough and it too fell to the earth in pieces.

Cursing at the loss of Craps, he had been relatively new to the unit, but hadn't been a bad sorts, he turned his machine towards the remaining Bogies.

They were also identical. His warbook was currently calling them _Eagles_, whatever they were really called, and at 50 tons he was dreading having to tangle with them. Armament was, so far, unknown, though it was probably heavier than the _Sparrow_, or maybe more thick skinned, if that seemed to be possible. Its wings were square affairs, mounted atop the hull, much like a piper cub of old, though with a considerable more powerful thruster with no vertical stabilizer and a bubble like cockpit.

They were also turning from the battle.

"Shit, they're running" Stated Filibuster 7, Edgard "Loco" Kurez.

"See them, Loco" Stated Hacksaw in the radio, "All right Filibusters, keep the range, let's see if we can talk the fight out of this guys," because frankly he didn't want to fight them either. Though that didn't mean he'd let them go.

He paused for a second and switched frequency to the ones the locals used.

"This is Filibuster Lead to the Pirate fighters, you are outnumbered and outmatched, and you can't get away, you know this. Surrender and we will spare your lives" it was a gamble, specially the spare their lives part, that would depend on his superiors, he was sure they'd at least get a fair trial. Still it was better than to try and tangle with them. Not to mention having new planes to play with would make the crew chief happy.

There was one tense moment of silence and then the radio crackled "Understood Filibuster lead, what do you want us to do?"

Hacksaw grinned, this was going to be good.

* * *

Back in the ground the situation was stabilizing, the pirates were shaking off the initial surprise but were still in a bad situation. Half their machines had been destroyed at the cost of only two Nightmares lost and five damaged enough to withdraw.

Snoopy cursed as he dodged beam gun fire, his machine still in Battroid.

He was sure the one in the big, ugly, boxy destroid was the pirate leader, it was the largest machine present, but it. Just. Wouldn't. Die.

He had unloaded most of his missiles into it and, though it had lost an arm, with the other not looking much better, the 80 ton monstrosity was still functioning. Worse, it was still firing, though with only two of its three heavy beam guns and hadn't used the laser in a while now, though given the state of the laser arm he doubted that thing was still whole.

He dodged left this time as he began trading fire with an insectoid 20 tonner. It had fired a pair of machineguns at him for little effect, as the shots had gone wide, and a laser, which had hit his pinpoint barrier to no effect.

Cursing at the distraction, he fired his Erikon and Mauler beam cannons at it. The Erikons went a little wide, but the Maulers scored a direct hit to the left leg making the smaller machine stagger. Of course, smaller was relative, even at 20 tones it was still heavier that his _Nightmare Plus_.

He fired his gunpod against the staggered machine, scoring a direct on the already damaged left leg, shearing it off and sending the machine into a tumbling fall.

With a grin, he moved his machine again, dodging machinegun fire from another insectoid machine, with the trick being to not to stay still, otherwise iron sights and MKI eyeball could make his day a shitty one. He traded fire with it, firing his GU-14B wildly, not to hit this time, but to suppress. The other 20 tonner was considerably further away and he still had bigger fish to fry, especially if he was right about that command unit.

Meanwhile Shotgun had still been dueling with the Undying Destroid. He had been unable to concentrate enough fire at any one point to breach the giant's armor, but enough of it was in the ground, by now, to know the monster machine didn't have much lease of life left.

Dodging left, he fired another burst from his Howard GU-14B, putting dozens of 40mm rounds into the 80 toner's central armor plate. The plate, an ablative allow of some sort, seemed to peel of yet another layer, but still held.

Then, the destroid fired back.

"Argh" screamed Shotgun, as one of the Destroid's beams sliced off his machine's head. It was a lucky hit, destroying the head turret and the primary sensor equipment, not to mention the twin Mauler beam cannons, but not instantly fatal.

"Retreat Shotgun," ordered Snoopy.

Snoopy cursed again and switched his machine back to GERWALK and dashed towards the boxy destroid. Firing all the way as he approached, scoring dozens of hits amongst the Monstrous machine that his warbook was already calling _Dullahan_.

The _Dullahan_ had ended up frozen for a second, but had recovered shortly and turned to face him but had yet to fire and if he was right, the massive beam guns it carried wouldn't fire for a few more seconds.

More than enough time.

At ten meters, Snoopy triggered his machine's transformation to Battroid and lunged at the Destroid, discarding the gunpod as he rerouted the power of the pinpoint barrier into his machine's right hand, now closed into a fist.

This was an old school trick, while the pinpoint barrier was a primarily defensive measure, meant to deflect and dissipate enemy attacks, it could be used offensively. The fold distortion that was the pinpoint barrier disk simply didn't distinguish between beam, shell or armor slab.

The now 'powered' fist slammed against the _Dullahan's_ cockpit window.

There was an ugly sound as the barrier clad fist and the Destroid's armor met but a fraction of a second latter the armor twisted and peeled away allowing the Battroid's arm to sink into the destroid neuralgic center.

The whole machine seemed to convulse for a few seconds and then it simply fell on its back in a thunderous cloud of dust.

There seemed to be a moment of silence in the battlefield as the dust cloud from the fall dissipated.

* * *

General Fenwood looked on disbelief.

He had been tracking the battle from one of the forward observation spots near the suburbs.

In all it might have taken ten minutes, maybe twenty, but he had seen the Pirate force being shattered, especially after the monstrous Assault Mech had been felled. It hadn't been a one sided engagement, but there were so many... what to call them? He had never head of a machine like that.

Some pirates had tried to withdraw, only to be cut down. Retreats turned to routs too easily, at least the books claimed so, and in this case they seemed to be right. Others, a minority, had surrendered their machines hoping to spare their lives. That was to be seen, after all piracy was a capital offense in Wynn's Roost.

"Sir, the ship is moving" his aide stated.

There was that, also, the Spacy vessel, as it was far larger than any DropShip he had ever seen. It also seemed to be hovering, with a total disdain for gravity, a few kilometers over the battlefield

"I see it; you got a heading, Lieutenant?"

"Yessir, seems to be heading towards the enemy LZ."

A part of him still fretted; there was a question of what was going to happen afterward. Yes it was one vessel, but Spacy meant an organization, and that could only mean one thing, more vessels like this one. That, for some reason, chilled him to the bone.

Hopefully Chairman Andretti would find a way to stay on these people's good graces.

* * *

At the pirate LZ there was chaos. They had seen their leader, the unconquerable "Claw" Santiguez be smashed by one of the transforming Mechs. But that wasn't the worse part, no, the worst part was that the raid force had been shattered. A few still fought, but the conclusion was foregone to anyone in the small pirate fleet. So there was not only chaos, but panic as well. Because they know what they did to the conquered and now, that the tables had turned, they were the ones facing an unknown fate.

Ibrahim Dobbs was the Captain of the Mule _Fair Lady. _He was a trader and been traveling in the _Rockhound_ when the pirates had decided to press gang them.

_An unlucky day, just like this one_, he thought.

The impossible ship was advancing towards them, ordering their surrender and power down. He didn't have any problem with that order, even if it would probably mean his neck. Unlike Buster, he had no illusion of being able to convince the courts they were as much victims as the folks in the ground, though he still would have to convince his 'Bodyguards' that it was over.

Not a likely proposition.

"Come on, Dobbs, we need to get away" Manuel Cass was the leader of the assigned 'bodyguards', he was tough and none too bright and he had been part of Claw's group for quite some time.

"It is not that simple," he stalled, "the engine is old. She needs to be warmed up properly first. We can't simply lift off." Besides, moron, he thought, we haven't heard from the JumpShips in an hour, where do you want us to go?

"Yeah," agreed his first officer, Selim Al Amri, "if you want us to leave in one piece, we need to go through the checklist."

"How come I never heard it before?" demanded Manuel.

Ibrahim cursed under his breath, the fool was always too drunk to care after the raids, but how to tell him that?

"How much do you normally care about take off?" challenged the Selim.

"They are here," muttered the sensor officer.

And so they were, the massive shadow of the impossible vessel was being cast in the clearing they had chosen to land in. Again the Spacy people sent their ultimatum, and again only silence met them.

Ibrahim was sweating, he wanted to surrender, but at the same time, he was afraid of what Cass would do to him and his crew if they tried to do the reasonable.

"Sir, it's the _Fireball_," exclaimed the sensor tech, "it's taking off!"

All three of them turned towards the sensor station, one of the screens was showing the external camera facing the _Fireball._

Dobbs felt his insides fall, now he would have to try and run the blockade, assuming they could outrun the fighters or the massive 'Spacy' vessel.

But before the Union class DropShip could get too far, there was a bright flash of light and an explosion, twisting and shattering the DropShip like an oversized egg in a vice and leaving its burning hulk to gravity's tender mercies.

There was a moment of silence as the Fireball's remains crashed into the ground and exploded, _probably spare ammunition_, mused Ibrahim in a detached manner.

"Manuel, I am not sure about you, but I am not leaving this as a smear," said Ibrahim to his keeper, "I am surrendering."

Manuel Cass looked white as a sheet, and could only nod. Even his thick skull could see it was over. Moments later, the other remaining DropShip, _Hitogatama_, surrendered as well.

* * *

In the bridge of the _Azure_, Eric Lestrade relaxed, it was over. The pirates were no longer a fighting force, all Destroids were accounted and so were the Parasites.

He was glad he hadn't had to order the other parasites destroyed.

Affixing his cap, he stood up from his command chair and moved towards Ensign Taylor's own.

All told there had been three fatalities, so far, but he was down ten machines, two had been shot down in the air, and eight more had been crippled in the ground and there were at least a dozen with lesser damage that would need to be repaired before they could sortie again.

It hadn't been the best of performances, to be honest, specially considered they had been fighting only a scratch formation of pirates; analysis would come later, during debriefing but damned if those Destroids and Fighters weren't tough.

"Ensign," he said towards Taylor's station.

"Yes sir," she promptly responded.

"Update the _Dyson_ on our situation, then, contact our new friends on the ground and arrange a meeting," he was probably overstepping his orders, again, but it was a calculated risk. They needed friends, and he had already made a good first impression, or so he hoped. "And let them know we want to deploy search and rescue units to the battlefield, to salvage our fallen but also to assist them in any way possible. Do mention that these units are unarmed."

"Yes sir," she replied somewhat mechanically.

"Then contact _Rapids_, let them know the situation here has been contained."

"Roger, sir," it was probably the first real battle the young Ensign had seen, and looked a bit shell-shocked. Eric made a mental note of talking to her afterward. But for now there was still work to be done.

It was going to be a long day.


	3. Chapter 2

Well, here is the Second chapter, less action and more world building. I still got one more to post plus one at the beta.

* * *

**September 25th, 3040**  
**Wynn's Roost System.**  
**UNS **_**Azure**_

Commander Lestrade looked at the fake windows of his office and reflected. Thirty hours had passed since the surrender of the pirate DropShips and the _Azure_ was back in geosynchronous orbit over the Magrotta plains.

It had been an interesting thirty hours.

Communication with the _Dyson_ had proved mixed. His superiors hadn't been all too happy about his decision to intervene, but there had only been a very light dressing down. Pirates weren't exactly popular and his intervention opened a door with the people of Wynn's Roost, as that was the name used by the locals for New Albuquerque. It didn't roll off the tongue well, but it was something he would have to get used to.

On the other end of the equation there had been the funerals to arrange, three of his pilots had fallen in the line of duty, and he'd had to write three letters to next of kin, regardless if the men had them within the fleet, it was a matter of principle or maybe a coping mechanism or perhaps even an exercise, a reminder that actions came with consequences.

They had learned a lot these past hours, messages exchanged between his people and the Wynns, as the locals called themselves, in particular their Chairman, Virginia Andretti. And yes, it was 'chairman', he had asked, something to do with a local tradition.

Right now he still had a detachment of Variable Fighters and Work Destroids planetside as they continued to clean the battlefield and move the remains of the machines, his and the pirates, to a more secure location until they could figure how the spoils would be split.

As he checked his watch, Lestrade noted it was almost time for his first meeting with the locals.

The Admiral had empowered him as the fleet representative for the time being so he could handle the negotiations, like this upcoming face to face meeting, though his mandate wasn't without limits. There was a laundry list of things he could and could not do. The whole purpose was to put the idea of basing the Spacy Fleet from Wynn's on the table, feel out the issue and leave the details for a negotiation team, if things progressed well. A big if.

Checking his watch again, he stood up. It was time.

* * *

**September 25th, 3040**  
**Wynn's Roost System.**  
**Magrotta Plains, Wynn's Court.**

Virginia Andretti was feeling a mix of anxiety and nerves as her private car moved towards the meeting point. She had been Chairman of the Roost for the better part of two decades. That meant she was very aware how tight their situation was, they weren't that far from being a failed colony, despite her and her predecessors' best efforts. She also knew how fortunate the intervention of the UN Spacy had been. A godsend if she were to be brutally honest.

Her driver slowed down the car as they passed through the cordon. The militiamen manning it didn't look too thrilled but they were doing their duty of keeping the curious off the battlefield. It was no place for a civilian, not yet. From her limited understanding, there were many risks, like unexploded ordnance but it was also in place to keep the treasure hunters from scavenging the fields.

The messages exchanged between them and the orbiting _Azure_ had filled her with a strange optimism, but they also worried her. While a godsend, the motivations of the Spacy were an unknown. That, naturally, preoccupied her. In her experience, people were hardly selfless and always had an angle. Not like they could do much if the spacers decided to become hostile, perhaps that was what concerned her most, that of changing their impotence before a pirate raid for yet another form of impotence.

Outside the car she could see the lean forms of a team of two Worker Destroids. That was how the Spacers called their IndustrialMechs, or that particular model of Industrial, she wasn't completely sure which one was. The machines were moving the wrecked shell of a BattleMech, a Locust if her memory served right, towards one of the storage areas that now dotted the plain.

Allowing the Destroids and their honor guard to work the battlefield had been an easy decision, a way to respect the Spacers fallen and let them retrieve those shattered machines of theirs. It also allowed her people to have a better look at the spacers.

The pirate's Mechs, on the other hand, were only being carted off to a designated storage area. Those Mech's ownership was one of the topics still in the air.

Five minutes later, the car slowed down and came to a stop as they arrived. A moment later, her driver opened the door and she stepped into the Magrotta plains.

It was a cool summer morning with a slight overcast sky. A nice day to be out in the country after all the bloodshed.

A small tent had been set nearby to serve as an impromptu conference room. Nearby, she also spotted General Robert Fenwood. He was at a table having a discussion with two people in what she assumed were Spacy work uniforms, probably the senior techs she mused. When Fenwood spotted her, he excused himself from the spacers and turned to face her at attention. He always was a stickler for discipline.

"Madam Chairman," he said giving her a salute.

She responded to him with a nod. "General Fenwood. I take everything is ready?"

"Yes," he motioned towards the tent, "we are set up and waiting for Captain Lestrade."

"Good," she said moving towards the tent's open flap.

The insides of the tent were spartan, with a table dominated the space, along with two chairs, on opposite ends, two flags, one the local Wynn's Roost emblem and the other, unfamiliar to her, but by deduction the Spacy's own.

"General, I thought you would be joining us?" asked Virginia noticing the chairs.

"With your permission, I'd rather stay standing," came the sharp reply from the militiaman.

"Robert, you aren't a young man any more, there is no shame about sitting down with the rest of us mortals, you know?"

"Nevertheless, Virginia, I'd rather stand."

"If you must, Robert," she glanced at her Commanding General. Robert Fenwood was frowning. He always did that when he was deep in thought. It was probably the reason why he was refusing to sit down; he always insisted he thought better on his feet.

She glanced at her watch, it was almost time.

Ten minutes later, there was a strange whooshing sound as one of the strange shuttles from the _Azure_ made its landing nearby. It really amazed her seeing one of the fusion plume-less contraptions land so close to her.

Within a few moments, the Spacer Captain, Eric Lestrade, entered the tent. He was wearing what she assumed was their uniform, white pants and a blue Jacket with a white visored cap.

"Captain Lestrade?" asked Andretti as she offered her hand.

"You must be Chairman Andretti, then?" he said shaking her hand.

Lestrade then turned to the other person in the tent "General Fenwood?" he said, this time extending his gloved hand.

"Correct, Captain, A pleasure to meet you," Fenwood responded, "We owe you a debt of gratitude, to you and your men."

"It was the least I could do, General," he said with a curt nod.

"Perhaps we should sit?" offered Virginia, as she motioned towards the small table

"That sounds like a good idea," replied Lestrade.

Once the two of them had sat down, and Fenwood had taken his place besides his commanding officer, Virginia eyed the alien captain. He looked young, younger than her, at least.

Finally, she cleared her throat.

"Perhaps we should begin?" she offered with a practiced ease. She was out of her depth, but that was true for all the involved, as far as she could tell, and that gave her a certain degree of confidence.

"Certainly, Madam Chairman," Eric paused, "how would you wish to begin?"

"I would like to begin with your people, what can you tell me about them and what were your reasons for being in this little corner of the galaxy," she stated.

"That is a difficult question, Madam Chairman. You have to understand that our situation is unreal." He paused, struggling for words, "Our fleet is lost, Madam."

"Lost? I find that difficult to believe, Captain. How could you be lost?" she asked with genuine curiosity.

"It is not a matter of location, but of chance. We were caught in a trap and to escape it we had to get creative with our FTL engines."

"Are you telling me you purposely miss-jumped?" interjected General Fenwood somewhat horrified. He had heard some tales of miss-jumps, and none of them had happy endings. Some of them, he though were exaggerations but all the spacers he had talked with, all three of them, had only talked about miss-jumps when well and truly lubricated.

"Not exactly," Lestrade interjected, "from what little I understand of your FTL drives, ours seem to work somewhat differently."

"How bad?" asked Fenwood automatically.

"Tell me, General, Chairman," he said as he faced both of them, "have you ever heard of the term parallel universe?"

For a moment, silence dominated the tent and Eric was left with the feeling he had made a serious mistake. For her part, Virginia blinked, she had expected many things, the OWA reforged, the Star League reborn, hell even another star nation from the deep periphery, but this? This wasn't anywhere near. It was an outrageous claim. But... she also had no reason to doubt the Captain. Not yet.

"I have, Captain and I have to say that it sounds rather... fantastic" She said, diplomatically. She had been a science fiction fan in her younger days, the idea wasn't that uncommon in her library, but seeing somebody, of flesh and blood, standing before her claim he was from an elsewhere? That was downright Fantastic, with a capital F no less.

"I agree with you, Madam," echoed Fenwood.

"It sounds fantastic, that much I agree, but it is the truth." Lestrade said in an even tone, though Virginia could tell his voice was strained.

"Hmm... I believe you Captain, for now" Andretti responded after a moment, she then looked at the younger man before her and took a gamble, "You are looking for a new home, right?"

Eric's eyes widened and he seemed to freeze for a second before he nodded, "That is correct, Madam Chairman."

"I think it might be time to drop the honorifics, Captain, Call me Virginia and I will call you Eric... and you can call this lug Robert." she said as she pointed at her General.

Eric couldn't help but to nod dumbly. He still hesitated for a second before he spoke again "Very well... Virginia," though his voice was still tentative. Virginia nodded in acknowledgment.

"Good, very good, Eric. Now, you were talking about a new home, right?"

"Yes, that is the mission, we were to scout a number of systems, compare them to our databases and see which one was the most suitable," he said, more calmly sounding than before, "Finding Wynn's Roost inhabited was really a boon to us."

"And just in the nick of time too," she added, "and what will you do now, Eric, will your people be conquering us or forcing us into bondage?"

"Nothing of the sort," he responded horrified, "merely negotiate, we could be of help to one another."

"That sounds agreeable," she responded, "I suppose that with you around we certainly wouldn't have to fear any pirate raid," stated Virginia, she then glanced at Robert, "no disrespect to your men, Robert," her tone this time was apologetic.

"None taken Virginia," responded Robert with a long suffering sigh, "the truth is I agree. Without your people, Captain, we would have fared poorly against such a large pirate force."

"I suppose so, we just did what we trained to do," responded the alien captain.

"That must be some training," stated Virginia with an impish smile "but back to the issue at hand.."

"You are open to the idea?" asked Eric.

"Yes, insofar we can reach a mutually beneficial deal," she responded. "I would have to sell it to the board, you understand, perhaps even need call a plebiscite, but I doubt many would see ill to the idea. No one in Rook City, for certain."

"That is enough for me. However, I would have to consult with my superiors, so I'd suggest we organize a follow up meeting for this issue," explained Lestrade.

"I understand, Eric, I think that should be for the best," responded Virginia.

"Thank you Virginia." Eric said with a small grin. "In the meantime, I want to suggest we trade our history databases. If we are going to be working together it makes sense we learn of each other, right?"

"That sounds like an excellent idea," she then turned towards her general, "What do you think, Robert?"

"It sounds like a fair trade." Robert responded perhaps a bit too fast. He was still uncertain about the story woven by the younger Captain but he was honestly curious about the files themselves.  
"Now perhaps we should move to the issue of the Pirates..."

"I have no real stance on that issue," Eric stated, "Though Commander Kurata, that is the captain of the _Rapids_," he explained, "needs to keep the crews of the JumpShips, or else we risk losing them." Already the situation of the _Elisai_ was somewhat critical; she had to be tethered to the _Rapids_ to avoid her orbit from decaying too much, and to provide power to her failing systems

"It chafes me to give them a bye." mentioned Robert.

"Not a bye, but a, hmm, work release program," interjected Virginia.

"That could work, though not sure if it will fit everybody in those crews," replied Eric, "from what I've been able to learn, the crew of the, Tramp, seems to be rather belligerent." In Kurata's words the only thing keeping them honest was the damage suffered during contact and the very real presence of the _Rapids_ and her marines.

"And what do you plan on doing with them?"

"For now, nothing," he explained, "but if they prove too troublesome, I'll have the _Rapids_ tow the ship into orbit and let your courts deal with the crews." Eric paused thoughtfully, "might need to make an example of a crewman or two, probably the Captain as well, from what Commander Kurata has informed me, he seems like a thoroughly unpleasant fellow."

"That... seems acceptable." replied Virginia.

"Rather than the pirates themselves, I am more concerned about their gear," Robert said.

"We captured quite a bit of it," was Eric's reply

"Two DropShips, a pair of ASFs and seven Mechs," paraphrased Robert, "with at least another half dozen repairable."

"That seems about right." admitted Eric.

"What are your plans for it, Eric?" asked Virginia.

"I've been instructed to turn as many of those machines as possible over to the fleet's R&D." Eric explained, "But I've also been allowed to release a few for your use. As a sign of good will," he clarified.

"That sounds good, perhaps we should work out the details?" suggested Virginia.

In the end the split was mostly satisfactory to all. The Militia would gain four of the light Mechs, but the Spacy would keep the heavier ones, including the beheaded _Awesome, _plus most of the damaged ones. The AeroSpace Fighters and DropShips would be handed over to the Spacy who would take on rgw role of the defacto System defense force, at least for the time being.

* * *

**September 25th 3040**  
**Wynn's Roost System**  
**UNS **_**Rapids**_**, Zenith Point**

Buster Devries was out of his depth. Ever since he had set foot on the _Rapids_, things had gone from dire to bizarre. The ship was new, it felt new, or at least very well maintained, but that was the least of the issues. There was gravity here, the whole ship had it, and with no evidence of rotating sections, this was honest to goodness gravity that felt just like being planetside.

He was also anxious about meeting the captain of the ship, and he had to convince the man that he and the _Rockhound_ weren't pirates. And they weren't, not that it would be an easy sell.

Eventually he was led to a small office; it was spartan, dominated by a metal desk with the same stylized blue diamond over a red roundel that seemed to be these people's insignia. Not a Cameron Star in sight, a part of his mind had provided, as he discarded the possibility of the Star League returned.

That was good, the League had been a golden age, well, not exactly in these parts, but it had been very, very, harsh on piracy, even those in his situation would have had to fear the noose.

There was a man, of Asian descent, sitting behind the desk; he seemed to be working on some sort of incorporated holo terminal.

Then his escort left the room leaving him alone with what he assumed was the Ship's Captain.

"Mister Devries?" asked the man.

"Ah, yeah, that's me, auh, Captain..." Buster trailed off.

"Kurata will do" responded the man, not looking up from his desk. Kurata, that sounded distinctly Japanese. Maybe even Kuritan... that was bad, they were even worse than the League when it came to pirates.

"Captain Kurata," he said tentatively.

"Good, I've been told you had requested to meet with me," replied the Captain. He was still looking at his holoscreen, which was making Buster nervous, and that was probably the point.

"I am not a Pirate," he blurted out. Great going, he though, now he is really going to believe you.

"Yes, my aide mentioned your claim," he still continued to work at his station, "do you have any proof of that?"

"I..." and he paused, this is what he was dreading, most of the proofs he could provide were far from being ironclad. He sighed, his shoulders slouching as he did so, "you can search my ship, interrogate us if you like, but I am telling the truth," he said with as much conviction as he could muster.

"Or you could be lying to try and save yourself from the noose." Buster gulped, and there it was the true reason he was scared out of his wits.

"Did you capture the DropShips?" was Buster's hesitant question.

"We did," admitted Kurata.

"Then there might be something else, the Mule, that is the _Fair Lady_, she was docked with us when the Pirates ah..."

"Impressed you into service?"

Buster nodded, "Yeah, the Captain, Dobbs is his name, he should be able to.. to..."

"Verify your story?" completed Kurata as he, finally, looked up from his desk

Another nod was all Buster could manage. The man, Kurata, had penetrating eyes, seemed to go right though him. A part of him had preferred when he had been looking at his holoscreen.

"Hm. I will follow up on this, in the meantime, I would ask you for a gift of good will, perhaps information on the Inner Sphere I've heard your people talk about..."

"Well... not sure why you need to ask me... y-you have access to our files and" he seemed to pause, "but I... yes I would be more than happy to assist you."

After an eternity, the man smiled, it was a toothy grin "Very well, why don't you sit down and start at the beginning."

"B-what?!" he said surprised, he wanted to do that now? From memory? "I thought you wanted to see my databases."

"And I will, but first I want to hear things, a general image, if you will, from your own mouth. It is always better to hear things first hand," he said, still smiling, "and after all; as a trader you must have moved extensively, and heard a lot, didn't you."

Ah, cold sweat yeah, there was that too now, thought Buster. "Y-yes, yes, certainly, my memory isn't the best but if you only want broad strokes I can do that."

"Good, but do take a seat," he said motioning to a metal chair to the side, "and move it close it to my desk."

He complied and sat down.

"I g-guess we should begin here, this area used to be part of the Outworlds Alliance..."

* * *

**September 27th 3040 (local time)**  
**GLK-2526 System,**  
**UNS **_**Dyson**_

"I assume you have read team Alpha's report," Thomes addressed his senior officers. There was an echo of agreement and nods from those present. The meetings had changed a bit since the event, that was how the crew had begun calling the misfold, for one they now included Mayor Logan, for another, they were happening far too often. Now that they had the time to digest the briefings and reports sent by the _Azure_ and her escort, now there were other pressing issues to address.

"In that case, we better get to the core of the matter, should we settle in New Albuquerque?" This was one of the few cases where Reuben, Admiral Thomes, couldn't pull rank, it had to be consensual. It also showed that, slowly, the meetings were turning into a defacto ruling council. That was something they would need to fix, once they had settled.

The table broke in murmurs, for a few minutes after that. Thomes let it; it was conductive for a debate.

"What do you think the locals will extort of us?" asked Gloria. She was open to the idea, to a point.

"Doubt it would be too much, Mayor Logan," addressed Colonel Geoffrey Kuong, "you have read the reports, they are in a bad shape, and they know we know. To be honest, I am more worried about this inner sphere and those Destroids of theirs."

"Perhaps we should call them BattleMechs? They seem to be significantly different than your Destroids, Geoff, and that is how the locals call them, their durability is concerning," pointed out Chief Engineer Mitchelson.

"We can address that issue afterward, both their Destroids and their Fighters and how to improve our effectiveness against them," stated Reuben. He was particularly interested in the latter given their new reality. "And how we will deal with this Inner Sphere."

"Then I say go," stated Mitchelson.

"I agree," echoed Logan

"Sir, having an already built support base is an ideal scenario, if the cost is not too high, we can't let it pass by," were Commodore Duperiale's words.

"I have my doubts, but will follow the will of the majority," Kuong interjected..

"Hmm, I think it is a good idea, will also be a good place to see what the locals are immune to. I understand that..." Doctor Fraga seemed to trail off.

"We will discuss that later, Elizabeth," Reuben paused for a second, "but then it is agreed. We will have to dispatch a team to Wynn's Roost to finalize the agreement."

"Gloria," he said, turning towards the Mayor, "I am very short on diplomats, can you do this?"

"Well, sure, I will leave the day to day to Fergus," she said with a shrug, "though you must know I am no expert."

"Compared to whom?" Reuben paused, "besides you did a good enough job two years ago with all that union business."

"Okay, point." She admitted.

"That more or less settles that issue," stated Thomes, "Now let's move onto the next issue, the battle between the Azure's compliment and the Pirate forces at Wynn's Roost."

"I am not happy with Commander Lestrade," stated Vifol, "he took far too many risks by engaging the unknowns; it might have turned out for the best, but..."

"Vifol, I understand your position, but we have already addressed this issue during our last meeting," said Reuben in a conciliatory tone, "I am more interested in your opinion of the battle."

"Our pilots proved to be very adaptable to their situation, few seemed to freeze over the durability of the alien machines, and our Stealth seems to have been successful, that is for the 171s, the enemy fighters were able to bypass the more basic OverTech stealth of the Thunderbolts."

"On the ground battle, our pilots used their stealth to great effect and were able to overwhelm the enemy in a relatively short period of time, by concentrating their firepower, that is two to three machines firing full payloads onto one of the BattleMechs; but then again, it should be noted that they were facing a band of ill-disciplined thugs in poorly maintained machines, I doubt we would have the same luck against inner sphere regulars." Of course, they didn't had a clue of what an 'inner sphere regular' was actually like, but regulars would have, probably, adapted better to an outside context problem; not to mention the quality of the machines would have been better. The latter was a sobering thought.

"And what about the machines themselves?" asked Kuong.

"That is my cue," stated Mitchelson, "Do bear in mind this is just an analysis of the data at hand, I'd have to get my hands dirty before we can get anything more solid. So this is mostly speculative in nature."

"We understand." replied Thomes.

"The BattleMechs, as the locals call them, are considerably more armored than our own, they also seem to out-mass our machines a couple of times, not surprising given how much armor, and weapons, they seem to carry." He gave a second's pause before continuing, "The armor itself is ablative alloy of some sort, seems quite superior to anything I've ever seen and, like I said before, they seem to mount it in spades, this goes both for the fighters as well as the Destroids."

The holotable switched to show a few schematics of the BattleMechs themselves.

"Commander Lestrade has managed to secure half of the captured machines as samples so we can use them to determine what is the best way to kill them, but if you want a quick answer, I'd say, concentrated or overwhelming firepower is the way to go." The former implied hitting the same general areas to perform an anomalous erosion of the armored plate itself, the pro was that it was doable with current gear, the con was that it required a high degree of precision from the pilots; while the later implied using more powerful weapons to overwhelm the plate in one go, it was simpler, but it would require new equipment and that came with other downsides.

"Not an easy thing to accomplish, to concentrate firepower," stated Geoffrey, "At least not in battlefield conditions and not with a lot of training." Oh, a few pilots could manage that but most of them would be far too busy dodging and staying alive to pull it off successfully.

"That much is true, so that leave us needing to up our firepower, particularly against things like that 80 ton monstrosity," commented Admiral Thomes, the _Awesome_, as it was called, worried him considerably. It may have been slow but was hard hitting and it was only one of many 'Assault' class machines. "Can you do something about it, Thaddeus?"

"I'll have to look at the databases," the chief engineer explained, "however I do have a couple of ideas, but they are quick fixes mostly, like switching to energy gunpods." Vifol frowned at that, Energy gunpod was an idea that was suggested perhaps once every few years; they were far more formidable than the ammunition based ones, but...

"What about the power requirements, wouldn't they compromise the SWAG and PPBs?" asked Vifol. That was the issue, energy pods would need to draw power from somewhere and that meant less energy for other critical systems as the energy converting armor or the Pin Point Barrier.

"Somewhat," admitted Mitchelson, "but short of upping the power-plants..." he trailed off. "And that isn't a quick fix, but if the present agree, I could look into that. However it will take time and resources." Several people along the table frowned. Time and resources were things in short supply at the moment, not to mention that any of these projects could end up producing lemons and they really couldn't afford that.

"Could we improve our current gunpods instead?" asked Mayor Logan "Better ammo? Or a dedicated ammo type?" While retired from the service, Gloria Logan had been a VF ace in her youth; she had been in a cockpit during the Battle against the Boddole Zer's Fleet and had lived to tell the tale, unlike most.

"That would be ideal, but would need research, we might be able to improve on the propellants, or the cooling, or we could switch to a heavier gun pod caliber, god knows we need that for the Tbolt." That caused a few nods along the table, "Or we could rely more on external ordnance, heavy missiles or bombs, but will up the costs considerably and give us a hit in the endurance of the Vfs, and lets not forget any of these options will take some time especially since we don't have much of a military research complex", he stated.

The fleet had considerable number of scientists, but since it was aimed towards exploration, it was geologist, biologist and physicists mostly, and to help set up colony worlds, there were also civil engineers. The military specialist were few and had been tasked mostly with adapting the research data received from HQ rather than coming up with new things.

"We don't need an immediate answer, Thaddeus, take your time," replied Thomes. "After all, I doubt we will be engaging pirates anytime soon."

"Understood."

"What can you tell us about their weapons, Thaddeus?" asked Duperiale.

"Too early to tell, they seem effective enough, I'd have to study them to give you a better analysis. Though the refire rate of their beam guns is glacial."

There were a couple of nods from the rest of the table. Rate of fire was of high priority for the current Spacy and Army doctrines. And those present agreed with said doctrine, at least to a point. After all the true core of the doctrines was versatility. It had been that versatility that kept the pilots from freezing out when things happened differently in the field and ultimately, kept them alive one more day.

"I'd need more testing to give you a better answer," he replied. Alpha's report had included a lot of data on the battle itself, including cockpit recording of all involved VFs but, as it was only a preliminary report, it had huge gaps and lacked a lot of the experimental test a proper forensics team could pull.

"Speaking of which, Thaddeus, I need you to assemble a Battlefield Forensic team," stated the Admiral. "We need to know more of these BattleMechs and Fighters and how to kill them. To use your words."

"Certainly, I will need a couple of days to get the people and equipment together," replied the chief engineer. "I assume you will be detailing one of our science vessels to this?"

"Yes, I'll detach the _Goddard_ and some escorts." replied Thomes. The _Goddard_ was a Cassiopeia class research vessel, it built using the hull of a Zentradi picket, as opposed to the far more massive and purposely built Einsteins but were more than suitable for their needs, allowing them to be all over the place supporting scouts and explorers and close to the so called hot zones, unlike an Einstein they were more expendable and their facilities weren't quite as versatile. Of course, their circumstances had changed, and the state of the art facilities of an Einstein would be missed.

"She is a good ship, good crew too." He paused, and then said, "I'd want to lead this one, Reuben."

"Actually I was going to ask you just that, considered it Okayed," responded the admiral.

"Excellent," was his reply, a smile evident on the Chief Engineer's face.

"Geoff, Viofol," spoke Thomes as he turned towards his underlings, "I want you to start drilling your people in the sims, see how good they fare against these Destroids and Fighters."

"I will have to guess a lot of the op-for capabilities," stated Vifol with Geoff nodding in support.

"Do your best," was the Admiral's reply. "That goes for you both. Our survival will rest on how well we might be able to kill those machines, both in the air and on the ground."

"Understood, I will put the boys through the paces." Kuong said with a predatory smile.

"Thaddeus, I know you will be busy but try to keep in touch with Vifol and Geoff, so they may refine their tactics," Reuben requested.

"Goes without saying, Reuben," was the engineer's reply.

"Moving on, the final issue for today is what do we do regarding the Inner Sphere?" asked Reuben..

"Do we have to do anything yet?" replied Logan, "I've read most of the history files and Commander Kurata's briefing and while worrisome, we are outside their reach."

"Worrisome? We are talking about five superstates going at it for the last two hundred years, they have racked a body-count that must be, at least, an order of magnitude larger than Space War One." answered Koung.

"In total numbers not percentiles," clarified Vifol.

"True but do keep in mind the information we have is stale, very stale" replied Thomes, the data from Wynn was decades, maybe centuries out of date, and the _Rockhound_ had last traded in the sphere over a decade prior.

"Perhaps we should get new data, then?" suggested Geoff.

"How do you suggest that? Defolding over there and asking the locals?" said Gloria.

"Of course not, that would tip our hand, as to speak, and I think we will need to play with our hand close to our chest for most of this one," replied Reuben.

"Well... we do have a couple of local Starships in our power." interjected Mitchelson

"Ships we don't know how to operate with crews we can't trust, yet." was Reuben response.

"So we are going to do nothing, Reuben?" asked Kuong.

"I didn't say that, but it is not like we have all that many options." he paused, "for the time being we should explore the local provinces. They seemed to have fallen off the map, so they are rarely traversed by local Starships."

"So we will be moving openly?"

"Not at this time, scout forces will deploy just inside the Oort cloud, given how the local FTL works, I doubt the locals will be watching outwards much, if at all."

"Sounds reasonable," replied Vifol. "What will the mission parameters be?"

"Basic recon, make sure how reliable our new maps are," he said referring to the old Outworlds Maps the Wynns had provided, "and to check how bad this area of space is."

"And should they find signs of human habitation, just observe and report?" hazarded Vifol.

"Yes, in the mean time we can also refit the captured Starships and prepare a more in-depth exploration of the inner sphere. Because this much is clear, ignoring them for too long is far from being a good idea," Reuben paused for a moment, "By the way, what is the status of _Detroit Blue_ and _Sao Pablo Gold_?"

"_Blue_'s drives should be up and running in two days, tops. We would need a week or so to fine tuning them. _Gold_ is a little behind schedule, say a week for the first fitting."

"Then this is what we will do. I will be sending the _Goddard_ and two escorts from Frigate Division Three in two or three days tops. With them will go Gloria, her team, Thaddeus, his team, and a colony team."

Colony teams were detachments of surveyors, scientist and engineers that were normally deployed to do the prep work for a colony. That involved testing the flora and fauna, cataloging the local resources and building the initial infrastructure. It was a significant commitment of manpower and equipment.

"A Colony team? Isn't it perhaps a bit too soon for that?" stated Elizabeth.

"Not if we use them to do Civil Engineering works. Might earn us some points with the locals. Plus we can also begin setting up the orbital infrastructure and the mines, once we get permission." One of the reasons that Wynn's Roost was such a tempting target was the presence of a very rich asteroid field in between the second and third planets. An asteroid field the locals hadn't tapped into or had stopped exploiting for one reason or the other.

"What about the colony team, will they be going in the _Goddard_ or we will be dispatching one of the transports?" asked Mitchelson

"The latter, I think_ King of the Plains_ has finished its inspections?" asked Reuben.

The _King_, as she was known, was one of the fleet's few dedicated construction vessels, a purpose built craft, capable of planetary landings and of carrying a considerable stockpile of supplies for the work teams. It had a large landing section, taking a cue from the Zentradi command cruisers, that was meant to serve as home for the colony teams, and their gear, as they did their worked the field.

"Yeah, The _King_ is space-worthy enough." agreed Mitchelson,

"Then the _King _and the _Goddard_, plus their escorts, will depart in three days" he paused, "then, as soon as the _Blue_ finishes its trials, we will be sending her, the yardship _Formas_ and the carrier _Formidable_ and her escorts." The _Formidable_ was one of the two Uraga class carriers that had been assigned to the fleet and represented a considerable fraction of their force projection capabilities, especially with her escorts which included one of the fleet's six Lancer class Cruisers. "They will assist the damaged _Elisai_ and will refit her for our use."

"So we are sending in a task force? I thought you wanted to make nice with the locals" stated Geoff, "they might take it the wrong way."

"The locals don't seem to care much about what happens past their atmo, and then we have Lestrade's own arrangement," stated Reuben.

"Ah, yes, that arrangement. System defense force, that might work," conceded the Army Colonel.

"Now unless there is another issue?" asked Reuben. At the lack of response he nodded, "Then this meeting is dismissed."

With that, the meeting came to a close.

* * *

**September 30th 3040**  
**Wynn's Roost**  
**Wynn's Court, Rook City.**

Chairman Virginia Andretti was starting to feel the burn. The last few days had been exhausting, especially thanks to the information provided by the history trade. That had been the first real agreement between them and the Spacy fleet. A truly momentous occasion, and yet it had brought her more headaches than she cared to think about.

That was the problem; she just didn't know what to think. To start with they weren't only from another universe, no, they were also from a thousand years prior. And that wasn't the most surprising thing, far from it: alien warships, a civil war, a space war, the near annihilation of humanity all packed in a single decade. And then what? A reconstruction using mass cloning and the decision to expand to the stars. Robert was right, it sounded just like the plot of one of her favorite novels, except for the part where it was all factual.

At least she now had a better understanding of whom she was dealing with and, as far as her people could tell, the videos attached to the files, some even from gun cameras, weren't faked.

Of course, the trick had been how to present the information to the board of directors; they weren't the most imaginative people on the planet and she needed their support.

The Board was the legislative body of Wynn's roost, originally it had been run by the trade cartels but after the Exodus, the role had fallen to elected officials. The current crop was half way through their ten year long service, were a tad too comfortable with their positions and not concerned enough by the specter of reelections, yet.

"How did it go?" asked Robert Fenwood.

"As well as it could be expected," she replied, tiredly.

"That bad?" he asked.

"They agreed to continue the negotiations; they know we can't last on our own, not at this level of tech. But show them the files and..." Virginia trailed off.

"I imagine," he responded, "it isn't something easy to believe. We are talking about aliens for one, real live alien creatures."

"Not that alien, they look perfectly human to me," she interjected.

"Except they can be ten meters tall," he countered.

"There is that," she admitted, "though it is not the most shocking point, not that the board members were able to tell."

"I know I am going to regret this, but do tell," Robert said.

"They can mate with us, with viable offspring."

"So?" biology wasn't his forte, he was a military man first and foremost, though there was something at the edge of his mind that had kept nagging him about that.

"So, this Protoculture has to be linked to us."

"In another dimension," countered Robert.

"It doesn't work quite like that, Robert, we have the same history up to the year 1999 or so," there had been some differences here and there, butterfly effect, if she'd have to guess, but by and large it was the same, "so there is little reason for the prehistory to be different, actually there are very good reasons for it to be the same," she mussed, "the point is, there might be Zentradi and Supervision Armies fighting out there." Robert blinked, twice.

"I am not sure if I understand your reasoning, Virginia," replied Fenwood.

"It is simple, I am convinced the point of divergence is in the Macross, maybe it was destroyed in here, or it crash-landed elsewhere."

"That doesn't answer the big question, why has nobody stumbled upon these Zentradi?"

"Chance, I'd say. Space is big." There was that. Space was incredibly big, even with how large the inner sphere was, it was only a pinprick in the Orion arm.

"Assuming I believe you, Virginia," he said with a sigh, "then what?"

"I don't know. This is bigger than me," she replied after a while, looking thoughtfully.

"Well, maybe you will be able to talk about this with the Spacy representatives," better them than him. Virginia could be a force of nature when she wanted to, or when she felt she needed to.

"Maybe..."she said speculatively.

"On any case, you got what you wanted and, doom-casting aside, we just need to figure out how desperate the Spacy fleet is for a home."

"Yeah, that makes far more sense, worry about the short term first," she admitted, "it is not the best of policies, but it is certainly better than going nuts over something I can't change."

"Good, so this is what I've been thinking…"

* * *

**October 2nd 3040**  
**GLK-2526 System**  
**UNS **_**Alvin York**_

The _Cuirassier_ (MBR-12) was the Army's third generation destroid. It based off the highly successful MBR-07 MKII _Spartan_, instead of the ill inspired MBR-10 _Defiant_. Designed by the StarShatter program in the late '30s and entered wide-scale adoption in the mid '40s, it was a machine of many firsts: the first destroid to mount the pin point barrier system; first successful implementation of feet mounted rollers for added agility, unlike the MKI _Cheyenne_ which was mostly an experimental and very temperamental machine; and first to mount the revolutionary modular hard-points.

Weapons-wise, it was a beast: it kept the _Spartan_'s pair of micromissile dispensers in a protected mount at each side torso, as a close in weapon; and the centrally mounted updated Astra TZ-X gun cluster, in between the micromissile dispensers and just below the cockpit. A pair of RÖV-15 Mauler pulse lasers mounted in a small turret above the machine's head served anti-missile and anti-personnel roles. From the _Defiant_, or perhaps even the _Tomahawk_, it inherited two shoulder mounted missile launchers providing the machine with added long range hitting power both against air or ground targets

The _Cuirassier_'s arms ended in standard manipulators, instead of the Norman Banks claws of the _Spartan_, with each arm pioneering a new modular weapon payload technology, allowing fitting different packages for different roles. The standard load-out was a shield in the left arm and the Mauler PGB-15c rapid firing, liquid cooled, Charged Particle Cannon on the right, and left open the option of carrying a gunpod in the hand of the same arm or storing it on the back of the Destroid.

It was, in many ways, the pride and joy of the army but, regretfully, both machine and crew were falling short of Colonel Koung's expectations. At least insofar as the training scenarios went.

"Again!" Colonel Koung barked at the assembled members of the 5534th Regiment, 1st Battalion, A Company, "You are going to do it again and this time better," he bellowed. "I want you all better supporting each other, firing by platoons at each of the machines, not going off and try to earn kills by soloing," continued the Colonel, "We are not Flyboys, and we don't have their casualties either. I want you to go into the sims, again, and this time emerge with less casualties than the _Azure_ did."

"Is that Clear?" he asked in a threatening tone.

"Yes Sir!" responded those present, seemingly unfazed.

"Good, go," he said dismissing them.

For his part, the Colonel moved towards the side of the room where Admiral Thomes was lurking.

"Aren't you being a little too harsh on them?" asked Admiral Thomes once the room had been cleared.

"Maybe, but their adaptability is still below par. I know we are not a service known for getting the best and brightest, but I've been trying to forge the 5534th into a tool we'd all be proud of," he paused for a moment. "However they are still a bit green around the edges. They are trying though," Koung admitted.

"What is the problem, then?"

"The problem is I am loosing too many of them in the sims. They seem to over-rely on the PPB system or get surprised when the pirate beam guns overload them or when the pirates suddenly develop cohesion and start volley fire."

"How much have you over-gunned those beam guns?"

"This time?" Koung said looking at the empty room, "Not too much, but you did say worst case and I am also varying the scenario from time to time. Can't let them get too comfortable or predictable."

"You had a full platoon of those _Awesomes_ as the core of the pirate force and almost doubled the number of light machines, last time," countered Reuben.

"You did say worst case scenario," repeated Koung, almost like a mantra.

"That I did. Now, how are they really doing?" asked Thomes after some time.

"They are not bad but I think they can improve. I have my faith in them," he explained,

"A Dangerous thing to have, it seems, Colonel," replied the Admiral.

"They can handle it," he replied with a slim smile, "Anyway, what brought you to the _York_?"

The _Alvin York_ was the fleet's sole dedicated troopship; rated for a full brigade, though it carried but a regiment of Destroids, the 5534th, and one of infantry, mostly combat engineers. It was a busy posting for the engineers; they generally helped their civilian counterparts set up infrastructure and prepare the colonies basic military installations.

"Wanted to check on our ground pounders and to have a word with you"

"Regarding?" questioned Geoff.

"The future of the army, Geoff," stated the Admiral

"Let's go to my office, then."

Colonel Kuong Geoff had been assigned the main office of the _York_, the one nominally assigned to a Brigadier General, and had decorated it accordingly. Photos, flags, even a pair of crossed swords dominated the walls. He even had a banner made in the likeness of the regimental colors. He had also secured some very posh chairs to boot.

Reuben wondered where the man had requisitioned them from, or if he had paid them with his own money, always a possibility. After all the Kuongs were nominally loaded, which made Geoff more of an oddity in that he choose to be a ground pounder in spite of having the backing of a wealthy and influential family and, more strange at that, fought to get a frontier posting.

Reuben was currently enjoying the chair while sipping the coffee offered to him by Kuong's aide.

"I've forgotten you had one of the fleet's good coffee machines, Geoff."

"Had to fight General Carrauther for it, worth it," stated the army Colonel, "but, you wanted to talk about the army."

"Yes," started the Admiral, "I've been thinking about the challenges ahead"

"Haven't we all?" asked Geoff, "so, what's the prognosis?"

"Well, out of all the branches of service, yours is the smaller."

"I am an army man in a navy's outfit," replied Geoff.

"There is that," deadpanned the Admiral.

Geoff replied with a small laugh.

"Anyway, I've read your recommendations and have to agree, conditionally," continued the admiral

"Oh?"

"We need to expand all our services, that much is clear. Especially since we don't know what is out there."

"And, like always, we assume the worst," completed the Colonel.

"True, but we don't have industrial capacity to spare, we are going to need most of what we have invested in infrastructure works, we might be able to spare a bit for you, though."

"What sort of kit?"

"Basic, I am afraid, but for the time being we are only going to need more infantry." With the limitations on the KF drive, the force on Wynn's Roost was more than enough to deal with any problems before it reached atmo, doubly so with the reinforcements heading its way.

"So, you want me to raise a Regiment of infantry?"

"That's the idea, and with time, I hope they can be turned into a regiment of powered."

"I am only a full bird Colonel, Reuben," warned the army man.

"No, you are not, consider yourself promoted to Brigadier General, effective immediate. Congratulations"

* * *

**October 4th 3040.**  
**Wynn's Roost.**  
**Wynn's Court, Rook City.**

It was getting late in the afternoon when Robert Fenwood marched into Chairman Andretti's office. He seemed a bit winded and was looking exhausted.

"We got confirmation?"

"Huh?" said Virginia as he looked up from her desk.

"The Negotiators have arrived." stated Robert.

"Ah, you should have said so, from the very beginning," replied Virginia as the stood up, paperwork now forgotten, "Where to now?"

"Startown. They will be landing within the hour."

The Star Town, or Startown, had been the main star-port, located only twenty kilometers from Rook City, it had been a sprawling and massive complex on its heyday. That day was long gone and was now used mostly as an airport for the few airplanes that still ran between the continents of Landing and Wynn's Court; but the facilities were still in place and it made sense as the place to receive an envoy. Even if their ships could probably land in the parking lot, if they so desired.

Startown also served as the main aerospace tracking and communications array site for the planet and had, at one time, even housed the local HPG, before it was destroyed in the great raid of 2890.

The drive to the Startown had been a pleasant, and short, one for Andretti. She had been anxious; this wasn't just meeting with the young Captain, but with a senior representative. And it was in this meeting that Wynn's fate was riding on. No pressure.

Once they arrived, she had been led to the operations center. Local commuter traffic had been diverted to one of the secondary airfields in Devon's Crossings, from what Andretti understood.

From the ops center, she had an excellent view of the tarmacs and landing pads. It had been some time they had used them and probably wouldn't be using them today, either. The lack of a drive plume meant that there was no need for the blast shields or the redirection channels. Below she could clearly see the militia honor guard hurriedly deploying a red carpet while others of their number were already at attention.

Twenty minutes later a single blip appeared in the radar and five minutes later the shuttle could be clearly seen through the windows. The craft looked like an aerodyne of some sort, but instead of using one of the landing strips, the plane seemingly stopped in midair and begun moving vertically.

"We should move downstairs, Virginia." stated Robert.

Gloria stepped out of the shuttle and into the tarmac. It was a hot day, slightly humid too. While Wynn's roost was drier than Earth, the Startown was close to the coast, making the air more humid than the norm, and giving the air a tinge of sea salt.

The soldiers, militia men as far as she understood, were all standing at attention and the militia band was playing an unfamiliar, if somewhat martial, tune.

There was even a red carpet that extended from the shuttle to where two people, she recognized as Chairman Andretti and General Fenwood, were standing.  
It was the first time she was received in such a fashion and, she had to admit, it felt good.

With a small smile on her face she began walking the length of the carpet, towards the welcoming committee.

It was show time.


	4. Chapter 3

Well, here you have Chapter 3.

Like Always kudos to my betas, Rabe and Barricade, from the Spacebattles forum

* * *

**October 6th 3040**  
**Wynn's Roost system**  
**Rook City**

Gloria Logan sighed in relief, the protocol side of things was finally over and it was time, at last, to perform the job she had been tasked.  
Not that she hadn't enjoyed the protocol events; the gala had been rather impressive and well organized and the reception had been a very sober and sedate affair that had served to introduce her to the local mover and shakers, but she was eager to begin her work.

She was currently inside the capitol building in a tastefully decorated room, with wooden fixtures of a local variety she didn't know by name with a few marble busts of local potentates at each corner, quite sober by local standards. A large table was also set up in the center of the room, flanked by a number of chairs. It was also an elaborate affair, seemed right out of a museum or a reproductionist, an specialist in making reproductions of things lost to the war, to Gloria. With her were Chairman Andretti and the representative from the Board, the legislative body of Wynn's Roost, Victor Jennek, Chief Justice Monica Bertrand plus their aides and a minute taker.

Justice Bertrand was the head of the Supreme Court and would server as the meeting mediator. She was by no means neutral, but then again there were no neutral parties thus far and she was neutral enough. She was an older looking woman, wearing her robes of office for the occasion, black and plain, plus a wig that wouldn't have been out of place in a docudrama. Victor Jennek was an older looking man, stern looking and completely bald; he wore an elaborate suit, almost Baroque in its design. He even had a cane with a flashy, in Gloria's opinion, brass head. It was an old Roost fashion, from what her guide had informed her, but still in favor by some of the more wealthy inhabitants, a throwback to better times, the man had said.

It was a staunch difference from the much plainer pantsuit worn by Gloria or even the elaborate, if simplified, dress worn by Virginia which, from Gloria's limited understanding, was up to date in the current local fashion.

But fashion was not in the morning's schedule, something Gloria was thankful about, the issue at hand was the far more complex, though less glamorous, arrangement both sides wanted to reach.

"I believe we should begin," started Chief Justice Bertrand as she slammed a small gavel against a sounding board. "First order of business would be to review what was agreed between Captain Lestrade and Chairman Andretti on September 25th, 3040."

"The UN has no objections to what was agreed on that date," stated Gloria Logan.

"Neither has Wynn's Roost," replied the Chairman.

"Then, the next topic is the Magrotta plains situation," continued Bertrand.

The Magrotta Situation was the, more or less, occupation of the former battlefield by UN forces. Wynn's Roost had temporarily ceded a portion of the former battlefield for the storage of the spoils, the captured and salvaged BattleMechs, a pair of DropShips and the remains of a third.

"The UN would like to pursue the purchase or permanent lease of the lands and is prepared to properly compensate Wynn's Roost for it," were Gloria's words.

"What would be the compensation?" Vennek quickly asked.

"We are prepared to offer several civilian technologies for the lands," came the reply from Mrs. Logan, "I also wish to note that the present that the lands aren't productive from an agricultural or industrial perspective."

There was a small pause as Vennek and Andretti confided in one another. Slowly Andretti nodded and turned back towards Gloria.

"That could be acceptable, which technologies are we talking about?"

"Medical technology," replied the UN representative.

"What would that entail?" asked Andretti.

"The data itself, experts to help get your doctors up to our standards and support in setting up the proper medical infrastructure. We wish to start this relationship on the best of terms."

That gave the present group pause; they had been expecting the first, perhaps having to haggle for the second point, definitely not the third and, least of all, all the three together. The older Board Member was looking wide eyed and was nodding slowly and so was Andretti. The UN was overpaying for the lands, but it was meant as an olive branch, a way to start the negotiations in good faith.

"That sounds acceptable," Virginia added, "however we will need the agreement of the Board of Directors for it to be formalized." She said that latter bit looking directly at Vennek who nodded very slightly in reply.

"That takes care of the preliminaries," droned the Chief Justice, "it is time to begin the proper negotiations of the state of relations between the UN and the people of Wynn's Roost."

Ah, now it was going to get interesting.

* * *

**October 7th 3040**  
**Wynn's Roost System**  
**Vazquez Field, Magrotta Plains**

The Hangar was brand new, it even smelled new; it was a prefab affair, much like the rest of the rapidly growing base that was now officially known as Vazquez Field.  
Thaddeus Mitchelson was inside the Hanger, one of the largest of the base, however it held no Variable Fighter, no Destroid and no combat vehicle, but the hulking remains of several BattleMechs in several states of disassembly.  
The centerpiece was, without a doubt, the Pirate Awesome, an 80 ton machine, massive and hulking, Mitchelson silently added.

The Awesome was half disassembled, what little armor remained had been stripped, leaving the myomers and other internals exposed to the casual observer. All over the frame specialists tagged, noted and catalogued its components. It looked like the carcass of the machine had caught a deadly plague of grey ants, well in progress of digesting their meal.

'Not too far from the truth', noted Thaddeus.

Already a large sampling of the machines armor and frame had been sent to the metallurgical team. They had a few tons of the mystery alloy that had seized along with the DropShips, but the worn and torn plates from the Awesome and other battle-scarred machines were going to be fundamental in learning the material's tolerance to the UNS current arsenal.  
They had a good chance of unraveling those mysteries, between the local library material, what little remained after the so called raid of 2890, and the samples taken from the battlefield, he was confident a picture would emerge. That didn't mean they'd be able to produce the stuff, at least outside lab conditions, but learning how to defeat it was a priority.

It was funny how that raid had done so much damage to the local infrastructure at key points. It was probably just happenstance, but perhaps it was worth making a note of it and forward it to the Admiral.

"Chief, we have the particle cannon set up on the range" stated one of the senior techs, bringing Thaddeus back to the present.

"Good, I'll be over there shortly. Tell Liam he can commence the tests. I want to oversee the dismantling of the fusion reactor here and then I'll be joining him"

"Roger, sir."

With that he turned back again towards the giant machine. The fusion reactor was interesting, a Pitban 240, per the user manual. That had been a real find; one of the pirate techs had left a tech manual in one of the Awesome's maintenance compartments. It was a yellowed, dog eared, copy with plenty of notes and stains, a real treasure for the forensic team. It didn't explain the hows and whys of the machine design, but it had helped them immensely in the dismantling and the cataloging of parts.

The engine itself was, from what they understood, a marvel. It was rugged, reliable, ran on protium, and was capable of operating for years with little maintenance. Why, it was almost Zentradi. Then again 'almost Zentradi' seemed to describe the Star League and not always in a positive light.

But that was another issue.

Back to the matter at hand he watched as the crane slowly lifted the massive engine from the chest area of the BattleMech. With all connections severed and currently offline, it gave no resistance and was slowly raised by a heavy duty crane.  
Right now, it was a giant high tech paperweight; one worth a few million dollars, at least, but a paperweight none the less.

Slowly the crane placed its payload on a waiting cradle, surrounded by the fusion team. He was looking forward to their report, supposedly Kearny and Fuchida had made their first postulate on fold mechanics based on an anomaly detected on fusion reactors. Mind you, there was no way of knowing if the anomaly was perpetuated into current reactors but it was something that Thaddeus was looking forward to find and so was the team. Who, no sooner the machine came to rest on its carrier cradle, they begun crawling all over it.

A part of him was hoping that the post mortem on that reactor would shed some light on more efficient fusion engines. While it didn't have any overtech or super dimensional solutions, it had behind it the refinement of, at the very least, five hundred years of advancement down a path that his Earth hadn't taken.

To his left he glanced at the heat sink team. That was the one he had least amount of high hopes on. The heat sinks seemed to be the most down to earth, ordinary pieces of kit in the whole hangar. They seemed to be positively simple compared to what the Spacy used. Like the reactor, no super dimensional mechanics or other more exotic approaches, just a plain old heat pump, if done with adamant materials and, probably, incredible tolerances. Again, almost Zentradi in its execution.

Nodding to himself he turned towards the door and stepped onto the dry summer day.

The base was a busy place. To the left he could see construction teams in Work Destroids erecting other hangers and associated facilities, while another team was laying the groundwork for the main runway and tarmac. Far on the distance, he could see, if faintly, a team working on the foundations of the main building and control tower.

The noise was quite impressive too.

In front of him was the Hangar dedicated to ASF research. He was probably going to go over there after the PPC testing. The planes were going to need more research time than the mechs, planes always did and they left more of a mess when they went down. In the meantime the ASF teams were working on the remains of the two downed planes, the Centurions, if he recalled the class name right, before starting on the two Lightnings that had surrendered. The teams had also roped some of the Militia staff into helping. The militia had a very ad hoc understanding of the machines, but they had managed to keep a pair of them flying under some very adverse circumstances.

There was wisdom to be gained from that hardship.

But for now, it was better to concentrate on the matter at hand, and that meant a trip to the Gunnery range.

He signaled his aid and got into the small general purpose vehicle, a GG M-500. It was the aging descendant of the old GM M-299 that had served the UN military during and after SW1. It was an open top, cheap and serviceable vehicle that was normally used within the military vessels of the spacy but could, at least temporarily, function on planetary surfaces adequately enough.

It was a five minute drive to the range. The range itself was an improvised affair prepared by the gunnery team. A few small wooden structures had been erected to give some measure of shade to the teams and to house the instruments and observers. In the distance, through his binoculars, he could see the retaining walls and the targets the team had set up. The range itself was only half built and only the closest sets of targets were available, the ones at 500m and 1km, but to get a basic idea of the capabilities of the PPC it was deemed more than enough. Plus he had analysts hungry for data. They were kind of scary when idle.

Most of the gunnery team was surrounding the cradle, the rather large structure that held the Kreus PPC and its attendant reactor, it had been the only PPC deemed functional by the on board computer of the Awesome. The other two were at the hands of a salvage team being surgically disassembled and studied. Theirs was a report he was eagerly awaiting, as well. If they botched this one they were going to need to dismount one of the PPCs from the Hitogatama , one of the captured DropShips, something that nobody was looking forward to.

"Well, boss," Lieutenant Liam Granger waved at Thaddeus as he approached, "you are just on time, we were about to begin the first live tests."

"Good to know Liam, got any troubles?"

"No really, though the LTV 160 we took from that Locust is being a bit temperamental"

"Oh?"

"Nothing serious; just had some issues with the heatsinks. I really wish we could set it up with an SDS array, would be more efficient that way." The SDS was the current fleet state of the art in heat sinks; it was lighter and smaller than the local counterparts, and incompatible with the local reactors. Well, at least not without some surgery but for that they needed a better understanding of the reactors themselves, which was going to take some time.

"If only. Michiko and her team have probably started working on the Pitban and it's built in heatsinks by now. With luck they will have an answer for you, soonish." Thaddeus said somewhat lamely.

"I'll wait with baited breath." Liam responded dramatically.

"Fruitloop," deadpanned Thaddeus before he continued in a more serious tone, "Noticed the targets are set up. All of them SWAG?"

"No, we have some RHA that the locals had which I think will prove rather worthless but, you know, have to follow protocol." Rolled homogeneous steel was still used by the Spacy to determine the penetration capabilities of weapons, "on the other hand we have some of that local armor alloy, don't worry I cleared it with Higgins and his team," he said referring to the armor team "and they gave the ok. It's going to be an interesting round; this thing seems to pack a punch and that ablative armor is quite enduring from what I understand."

There was that. Everything about the locals screamed tough, weapons, armor, even the mecha, like the Awesome, and from what he could see, it was warranted. From what he had seen of the battle footage, no less than three elements hand engaged the target, at different times, but the end result was no less impressive, a couple of dozens of micro missiles, hundreds of gunpod rounds and a few dozen of both laser and beam bolts had impacted all over the armored shell of the BattleMech to various degrees of damage, but it had taken Lt. Commander Ridden's power fist attack that had finally put down the Awesome, and only because he had smashed though the cockpit.

Then again few surfaces could withstand a pinpoint barrier in 'offensive' mode, especially if you were directing most of your output to it, like Ridden had done.

They built tough and, logically, needed equally tough guns to put down those behemoths. Of course there was always a cost, and in this case speed and heat seemed to be the biggest contenders.

They spoke of endurance issues to Thaddeus and seemed to point towards the fact that the Awesome was no front line combatant but more of a fire support unit, a very heavy one. Then again, heat could be managed with the slow re-fire rate of its primary armament, perhaps it evened out? It would need a skilled pilot and it wouldn't be the first time that shortcomings of the machine would have to be solved by the flesh and blood that drove it.

Thaddeus shook his head; it was neither the time nor the place. Plus they were here to answer those questions with hard data, not with chains of reasoning built upon smoke.

"Ok, fire it up; let's see what this gun can do."

* * *

**October 11th 3040**  
**Wynn's Roost System**  
**Rook City**

"Impressive building, Gloria," Stated Thaddeus Mitchelson, "can't believe its three hundred years old."

The building itself had once been the Consulate of the 'Free Worlds League', from the time Wynn's roost had been the provincial capital of the Trader's Domain. A testament to a better era, the manor, in what the locals referred to Boccelli style, was an elaborated building with worked reliefs surrounded by a hedgerow that included extensive grounds, especially what once had been a very elaborate rose garden.

"What I can't believe is that it's still livable after being abandoned after so long," interjected Gloria, "if nothing else, they surely knew how to build to last."

"Aye, I agree, though from what I understand they had been restoring them prior to our arrival," interjected Thaddeus.

"Actually they were mothballed a century back or so. They cleaned them up some after the first meeting with the young Captain." Gloria said pointing towards Eric Lestrade. "Though, our people had to finish the job."

"Not clean enough?" asked Eric.

"There was... another type of cleaning we need to perform. No bugs to be found, though." she answered in a relaxed tone.

"Ah. So they are trying to be honest or have better bugs than our gear." mussed Thaddeus.

"I think the former. Their tech infrastructure got hit severely by the fall of the Star League."

"Bad business, that." Eric stated. He was looking at his tumbler and the amber liquid within. It really read like a horror story. Too many worlds lost with, at least, billions dead and all because some bastards had decided to blackbox critical life-or-death equipment.

"So, how does it feel to be a full captain, Eric?" commented Thaddeus in an effort to redirect the conversation towards sunnier topics.

"It is... different." he responded after a while. He was now in charge of all defense forces in system, at least until the _Formidable_ and her task force arrived.

"Aye," responded Thaddeus as he poured himself a measure from the decanter, "more paperwork." he added with mirth.

"Well, yeah there is that. Though I never thought I'd get promoted for well..."

"It wasn't an easy decision," admitted Gloria, "but in the end, Reuben, I mean the Admiral," she corrected herself, "decided that your quick thinking was to be commended. Commodore Duperiale was less thrilled about it, though." The operation itself had been well thought out, even operating on from a very limited, bare bones in all honesty, intel framework but the main reason was more of a political nature. The Captain's intervention had left them a lot of good will, diplomatic capital, with the people of Wynn's Roost and promoting the man of the hour was a way to compound said diplomatic capital.

"Well, Vifol is a bit of a traditionalist." commented Thaddeus. "But I am sure she will warm up to the idea. Eventually."

Eric simply nodded. He was simply unused to hear the fleet's ranking officers being called by their first names and in such casual manner, or to have friendly chats with two of their number.

"I got to say, this is an excellent whiskey, Gloria, this is local?" asked Thaddeus, old style tumbler in hand.

"Yes, a gift from the Chairman." she replied while she put down her own tumbler, "I've found it to be a contender to the bottle of Glenfiddich I have in my quarters."

"My, Gloria, you shouldn't taunt us with that kind of information," replied Thaddeus.

"Heh, can't help it, I was in Dufftown just before the departure of the fleet," she said with a smile, "so I decided to take a piece of the old Earth with me," she added with a certain edge of nostalgia. While the Boddole Zer's fleet bombardment had been devastating, it hadn't been absolute, especially not in the northern hemisphere where the Alaskan Grand Cannon had obliterated a large part of the enemy squadrons after their initial volley. Too late to save the metropolises, but enough to spare some small towns and other isolated areas, like Dufftown.

Thaddeus nodded, and reminded himself that he was talking with one of the survivors. For his part, he was thankful of being a child of the new world; he was proof of mankind's resolve and its drive to endure. At least that was how he liked to see it. Or maybe it was the scotch that put him in a poetic mood.

"So, why did you call us here? I doubt it is about the whiskey, as good as it might be," stated Thaddeus

"No, you are right, it isn't about the whiskey and neither this is a social call, not fully on any case" she put down her tumbler, "I've managed to secure a large area of the Carlisle coast to serve as a primary site for us, Thaddeus."

"Good, good, I assume we got a good deal?"

"More or less, Reuben wants to play softball with the locals, thinks we can forge a lasting alliance, though it wasn't as easy as with the Magrotta plains. That one wasn't a particularly productive region of land even before your boys tangled with the pirates, ne, Eric?" responded Gloria, looking at the captain.

"I... well, er..." stammered Eric.

"Don't listen to her, Eric, she has a strange sense of humor." interrupted Thaddeus.

"Says you," was Gloria's reply, "but I fear we are drifting off topic."

"That I agree." deadpanned Thaddeus.

"You are no fun, Thaddeus," she replied making a face towards the engineer, "there was a price tag to the land. Nothing too steep, but it is work for our engineers"

"Rail links?" hazarded Thaddeus.

"How did you guess?"

"Lots of them in disrepair, the remains a maglev network from what I understand." Wynn's Roost had suffered a lot and had lost a lot of technology in the years following its secession and the collapse of its microstate. It was, in many ways, heart breaking.

"Yes," she turned towards Thaddeus, "I know Nakajima is capable enough, but I wanted to have you to oversee the work and act as spokesperson if necessary. Like I said Phil is good and all, but not really a people person."

"Sure, it will take some time from my other jobs, but I can handle it. Worst case scenario, I'd leave some of the overseeing to Lysander. He needs the extra experience and is quite competent."

"Good, that is one issue. The other has to do with you, Eric." stated Gloria. "Don't worry it is nothing too outrageous, our hosts here think a Parade with the saviors of Wynn should be done after the signature. I think it is a nice gesture and also a good Hearts and minds opportunity."

"Signature? We are that close?" asked Thaddeus, somewhat perplexed.

"That we are," confirmed Gloria, "to be honest it exceeded my own expectations but negotiations have been rather amenable. In other words, our wants and their wants are in alignment."

After a moment of silence, Eric spoke, "a Parade?" he asked skeptically, "why not an airshow? It plays to our strengths." He said idly.

Gloria blinked at that.

"Even better, hadn't thought of that one," answered the Mayor with a broad smile, "I think it is an excellent idea, we could set up an air show and a spacy museum in the grounds. Hell, I'll even volunteer my private VF if you promise to take care of it, should add to the variety."

"You have a VF?" asked the Captain somewhat puzzled. There were civilian Valkyries, but they were rare and expensive. More for the rich collector than for an elected official as clean as Gloria Logan was. Though sometimes they were handed to the veterans, given as very expensive retirement presents, to SW1 veterans, if his memory didn't failed him.

"A VF-1X, almost like the one I flew in my day, though civilianized." She added with a sour expression, "It is even here, you wouldn't know how much of a hassle it was to convince Reuben. He was very adamant, but… well, let's just say that when you know somebody since they were more or less toddlers you do have some especial ammunition," she said with a wide smile and a wink.

"Oh, you are a survivor." He exclaimed as he finally put two and two together, "oh my!"

"That is ancient history and I personally prefer it that way, kay? Just don't go shout it from the rooftops and I won't have to get mean," she said, smiling a bit too forcefully. She wasn't running from her past, and it was not like it was a secret. Finding out about it was trivial, if you knew where to look. It was that she just hated the 'poor you' expression people had when they found out and let's not forget the condescending tone. Yeah, she was part of the select few that had fought in, and lived though, the climactic battle of SW1. She even had the scars to prove it, but so what? It shouldn't have to make a difference; after all it wasn't as if they had expected to live through it. Her former campaign manager had been so disappointed when she had nixed the 'Hero of SW1' angle for her last election. She wasn't one, she had just been lucky, or unlucky, enough to live though one of the worse meat grinders in known history. Better people than her had died that day.

"You'll get no problem from me," he answered.

"Good, then I won't have to arrange the accident… I kid, I kid." She said with a grin that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"What did I told you about scaring the Captain, Gloria?" Thaddeus interrupted.

"No fair," she said deflating, "anyway, Eric, back to the topic at hand, I'll have my aide liaise with you, she should be able to help you with the organization and I'll talk to the Chairman. Got to sell her on the idea first, but I guess worst case scenario we can do both. Besides, everybody loves a good airshow."

* * *

She felt strange. Something was off and her mind fuzzy.

"Ah, you are awake." the voice said

Voice? It was dark. That is because your eyes are closed, a part of her mind provided. So she opened her eyes and closed them again.  
It was bright... too bright.  
Slowly she blinked once, and twice before finally opening her eyes.

It was still too bright.

"Take it easy, everything is okay." the voice spoke again.

Slowly she opened her eyes. She was in a bed. Bed? Ah, yeah for sleeping. Was she sleeping before?

"I..." her throat felt raspy and rough

"Shh..." the voice interrupted, "Try not to speak, not yet. You have been through a lot"

I have? She wondered. I? I am, who wait she knew that, her name was Illia. And... her eyes, half open now, darted towards the source of the voice. There was a man in a white coat. Doctor, a part of her mind provided. Doctor? They tended to the wounded. That sounded a bit off, but, yes that seemed to be it. Was she wounded?

"Drink," the Doctor said passing her a small cup. There was a clear liquid inside.

Hesitantly, she grabbed the cup and took it to her mouth.

It tasted strange, but she realized she was thirsty so she drank it all.

"Good, good, that is very good. Now, how are you feeling?" the doctor said in a friendly tone.

"I..." it felt easier this time, her throat wasn't as rough as before, "I feel strange."

"You have been though a lot, it is natural."

"I-is it?" the voice sounded strange to her ears.

"Yes but everything is going to be just fine now." the doctor said, smiling.

* * *

**October 11th 3040**  
**Deep Space**  
**Hospital Ship UNS **_**Curie**_

"So, she is the first?" asked Reuben. He was looking at the, again, sleeping Meltran though the mirrored window.

"Yes, she is," responded Elizabeth Fraga, standing by her side.

"So, what do you think?"

"The conditioning seems to have taken. It is still iffy, so I'll keep her in observation for at least a few more days"

"And the rest?"

"Well, I wanted to take it slowly; we decided to initially decant a few of each clone batch, trying to use them as test cases before we awaken the rest."

"I am not sure if we have the time, the power grid on the Salvation is a bit iffy."

"Oh, so you named that ship?"

"Better than to refer to it by its serial number, easier too."

"There is that," Elizabeth admitted.

"So, what about the Zentran aggressiveness?" asked Reuben after a while.

"She will have the aggression issues, can't change that, not without some serious gene therapy and even then it is iffy, but I think I managed to minimize the impact."

"Care to explain?" asked Reuben.

"We've given her a hobby."

"Oh?" he said raising an eyebrow.

"Aikido," was Elizabeth reply.

"Why?" Asked the Admiral

"It's a good way of channeling aggression, plus, the coin fell heads." explained the Doctor.

"Heads?" Reuben sounded perplexed, "What if it had fallen tails?"

"Knitting."

* * *

**October 13th 3040**  
**Wynn's Roost System**  
**Rook City**

The small press room was filled to capacity. Then again it wasn't that big.

During better times, this had been used for the less important announcements by the Wynn's Government; however, time and decay had turned the other, larger, Press room into a storage area and had left this one as the only room for the task. It really didn't matter; the room had all representatives from the Wynn's Press, a Macross Broadcasting Services team, and room to spare for some VIPs. The MBS team, Ichiko Zantik and her cameraman, Formos Addol, had flown in with Gloria Logan's delegation, nobody was sure how they had managed to secure their places in the delegation but it was something people had come to expect of Ms. Zantik.  
She had spent most of their time doing pieces about Wynn's Roost for MBS and had also had participated in a few interviews for the local media. Ichiko was known for been cunning and resourceful and Formos was perhaps one of the better, if possible best, cameramen in the fleet.

The room had been thoroughly prepared for the announcement, with the small stage holding two podiums, one with the emblem of the spacy, the other with Wynn's Roost planetary seal.

On the small stage, and behind her podium, Chairman Virginia Andretti was standing about a meter to the left of Gloria Logan whom was behind the second podium. Behind them, stood Captain Lestrade, in his Spacy whites, and Robert Fenwood in his far more elaborated and gold braided dress uniform of the planetary militia. Fenwood was looking somewhat uncomfortable and overdressed in his militia dress uniform, far too much gold compared to the positively spartan Spacy uniform.

Camera flashes seemed to erupt occasionally as the cameramen took shots of the assembled.

"This is a momentous occasion for Wynn's Roost," stated the Chairman, "as you all known we have been in negotiations with the people of the United Nations."

Cameras flashed and pressmen and women took notes, while the 3D operator made sure his take was on the level.

"They are much like us, alone and lost in the black. Our circumstances may be different, but even then we are very much alike and it only stands to reason that we rely in one another as we move forward. It is with my greatest pleasure that I announce the formal Alliance between Wynn's Roost and the United Nations, we are but two people lost to the infinity, it is my hope that we will grow together from now on."

More camera flashes filled the room, this time with the members of the press started to mumble. The Chairman motioned towards the other woman and moved a step back, leaving the 'center stage' to Gloria Logan.

"It is with great honor that we signed this alliance today." started Representative Logan, "it is my belief that we can all work together for a bright new future. Like Chairman Andretti has said, we have a lot in common and we can only go forward from this moment on. This is but the beginning."

"Now we will have a round of Questions" stated the press adviser from the side. As one, the members of the press stood up, all raising their hands.

"Yes," Victoria Andretti said pointing at one of the press men.

"Robert Galveston, Evening star," he said introducing himself, "is it true that the UN will improve our medical infrastructure?"

"Yes, they have agreed to improve our medical facilities to their level; You." She said pointing at another newsie.

"Victor Guzman, Fairbrook Gazette, isn't the price we are paying for this friendship a bit too steep? The Magrotta plains and the Emerald bay are sizeable pieces of our heritage, worse, I understand that there might be even more land exchanges in the future."

"Friendship is a two way street, Mr. Guzman, our new friends need the land and have agreed to pay with things our people need. New hospitals, a new university, infrastructure works… all for state lands we don't really use and haven't done so for at least a hundred years. You."

"Yes, Robert Dalfour, the Herald," replied the newsman, "what about the new UN recruiting stations that are being established in our cities? Won't it be a drain of our best and brightest?"

"A drain to where in particular, Mr. Dalfour?" ironized the chairman, "This is our chance to move forward, not to revisit old fears. That was the failing of the Trader Union and I am commited into avoiding that pitfall. You," she pointed towards the MBS representative.

"Ichiko Zantik, MBS, to Gloria Logan, Aren't the terms offered to Wynn's roost too steep? While it is true they are offering us a new home, for which we are grateful, the price we are paying for it…"

"Ichiko, while it is true we are being rather generous with the Wynns, it is also true they have been more than accommodating with us. More to the point we are trying to create a lasting relationship here and we will not deny help to friends in their hour of need. I don't have to remind you that not all threats are of as overt as a pirate raid."

* * *

**October 16th 3040**  
**Wynn's Roost System**  
**Wynn's Court**

The Parade grounds had originally belonged to the SLDF contingent assigned to Wynn's Roost. At least till it left during the New Vandenberg Uprising, though at the time it had been stated to be only a temporary measure while the SLDF consolidated the forces in the OWA into a defensive cordon. They never returned and, over the years, the militia had come to call it its own.

Not today though. Today it was of the people, to the future.

Several large tents had been erected, large improvised pavilions holding machines of war and peace; small mobile shops had been set up thought the grounds peddling their wares, including some of the Fleet's automated machines, selling from candy to T-shirts to miniature replicas of the machines that were today the center stage. Though it was jointly hosted by the Spacy and Wynn's Roost Militia, everybody knew it was the Spacy's show. Its machines had drawn most of the crowds and would sell the most miniatures.

It was inevitable, between the cavalry act during the 25th and, more importantly, the number of specials the local networks had been running on their 'brothers from beyond space and time' it had whipped the crowds into a frenzy for all things UN in general and Spacy in particular. Of course, the museum was a sideshow; the main attraction was the air show. People wanted to see the machines in action, or as close to it as possible, in this case it meant a choreographed dance in Wynn's Court's skies.

For fifteen year old Helena Hollis life had taken a turn for the unreal. It didn't help that the last few days had been like out of a serial. They began poorly, in the dampness of one of Rook's civil defense bunkers, but then the Spacy had shown up. People from another time and another universe, it didn't get weirder than that. It was all the TV spoke about: interviews, specials, even movies, especially movies. She had seen most of them, but wasn't sure how she felt but had let her younger brother dragger her to the Airshow. If anything, it was an important day, history in the making, she knew that much. But keeping up with the little hellion she had for a brother was another matter altogether.

"Lucas! Slow down, there is time."

"But, but, oh, come on sister, you are no fun and the show..."

"Won't start for an hour," interrupted Helena with little patience, "come on Lucas, lets watch the exhibits, and if you behave I will buy you a miniature." Her parents had gone to the bleachers, hoping to get some of the good seats and had left the two to wander through the museum section.

"I want a Valkyrie," he machine-gunned.

Helena smiled warmly and nodded. Her parents had gone ahead towards the bleachers in hopes of securing a good spot, but she and Lucas had wanted to see the tents first, they had agreed and given her quite a bit of pocket money for that outing, she could afford to buy her kid brother one. Hell she could afford to buy herself one. The trick was going to be to keep it at one each. She knew the hellion.

"Very well, but only if you behave," she finally said.

Lucas nodded and begun dragging her towards the next tent. They had just exited the local militia tent with its pair of, locally built, Fulcrum Fighters and one of the SB-26 Sabre the militia operated. They hadn't calmed Lucas' drive, in his words he 'didn't wanted to see those lame militia planes, but the awesome Spacy ones, the ones that transformed'. Of course, Helena herself would admit to the same, somewhat. She just wouldn't have called the militia planes lame; it would be rude, after all.

The second tent was much larger, and there were a lot more people in there gawking at the alien equipment. Much like in the militia tent there were young women giving flyers with explanations of the planes and even some men and women in Spacy uniform answering questions and taking photographs and other mementos with the visitors.

Lucas had, predictably, dragged her from one VF to the next, and had bugged all the men in uniform with questions of all kinds. But the soldiers had been friendly and understanding, why, one had even given a Spacy emblem to his little brother and, surprisingly, one to her. She blushed at that and managed to only mumble a weak thank you. So embarrassing.

And then she saw it.

It was smaller than the other variable fighters, but it took center stage. It was white with red and black trim lines and, unlike the other planes it was in the hybrid mode, GERWALK, if she recalled correctly.

"Ah, I see you have taken a liking to this one," said a woman with auburn hair and a spacy uniform, standing near the VFs broad feet.

She only nodded and so did his little brother. They had seen this plane in the docudramas, the first variable fighter, there was something inherently beautiful about it.

"She is a special one all right," replied the woman.

"Is she is a Valkyrie?!" exclaimed Lucas.

"Yes and no, she is actually a VF-1X. Far more powerful than what the old Valk could do," she said handing them a glossy flyer, "but looks aside, yes, she is almost a perfect copy of the good old VF-1J"

"But… but she looks like the one Hikaru flew! Is it the same?" said Lucas in quick succession.

"Lucas!" barked Helena.

"Oh, don't worry about it, I also grew up watching that series, it is a classic." said the woman with a warm smile. "No Lucas," she said to the younger boy, "Hikaru didn't fly this one, but her pilot was a friend of him."

Lucas seemed to deflate somewhat. "He was?"

"She was," corrected the woman, "I am sure you've seen her in TV? Gloria Logan?"

"But… she is old! Like old old!" the younger boy clarified as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

The woman seemed to find that last bit funny, and let out a small chuckle. "Well, she ain't no spring chicken."

"Huh?" echoed both brother and sister.

The woman sighed, "I sometimes wonder about this whole communication thing," she seemed to say to the air before turning towards Lucas and Helena, "It's a saw from my people, it means that you are right, she is kinda old, but she wasn't once and Hikaru's story happened a long time ago."

"W-was it true?" asked Helena to her own surprise.

"Sorry?"

"The story, I mean with the Giants and the war, I…"

"Yes," the woman seemed to sadden somewhat, "that much is true, that, the war…."she seemed to go somewhere else but shook her head and smiled, "but you shouldn't think about those things, not today. Today is a day of celebration."

"I guess you are right," Helena finally answered, somewhat doubtfully.

"Of course, I am," replied the woman, confidently, "Now, if you want your picture taken with this beauty, I suggest you hurry, the air show is going to start soon."

"Eep!" exclaimed Helena looking at her watch.

They made it in time, if only just, her father had scowled her, but had handed her a pair of binoculars, while her mother offered another pair to Lucas. The bleaches had been set up in front of the parade ground itself that it was wide enough and flat enough to serve as a scenario for the flights and as a landing strip for the VTOL capable Spacy craft.

And then it began.

The first routine was performed by the militia and their Fulcrum atmospheric fighters, the planes had shown its agility and maneuverability flying in formation at deck level and performing a few basic pirouettes including a booster climb. The intro was a respectable performance but then the VFs took the field.

It started with a flight of four Thunderbolts, all in GERWALK mode, as they dashed along the parade grounds, before they reached prearranged locations and switched all the way to Fighter mode and performed a climbing barrel roll, leaving behind thick, colorized, smoke in their trail.  
As they reached the zenith of their climb, the machines seemed to intercept each other and pass by one at what seemed to be centimeters from one another.

That drew a few gasps from the audience.

And then they switched into Battroid mode and let themselves fall as they grasped one another, in a parody of a parachutist ring. They fell some length, probably half of what they had climbed, before they split from one another, turned back to fighter mode and speeded towards the four cardinal points, again spewing colored smoke in their trails.

Then the Nightmare Plus took center stage. They started by doing an opposing pass at deck level, two flights of four, with each fighter crossing the incoming one laterally at what seemed negligible distances, then they switched to GERWALK, rose in the air and switched back to Fighter mode as each plane launched itself in a vertical climb leaving behind a trail of colored smoke.

As they climbed, repeating the TBolts climbing barrel roll, but at considerably higher speeds, they made a pass by one another, again at negligible distances and turned twisted and accelerated at full throttle, making a thunderous boom as they broke the sound barrier several times over as they climbed into the great blue yonder.

After that all the planes closed their throttle, switched to battroid ,and simply let gravity do the rest, all while switching colors of smoke.  
At about 500m the machines transformed back into the hybrid mode and gently, landed onto the parade grounds before transforming, yet again, into their mech like mode, turning towards the audience and, as one, performing a bow.

Helena was flabbergasted. She had seen the docudramas and even some of the documentaries but never in her life she had seen such a display of agility, precision and daring. Like most of the people on the bleachers she was on her feet and clapping euphorically.

Years later she would look back and say that was the day she decided to become a pilot, to start in the road that would lead her into trying to tame the sky with her own two hands.

* * *

**October 26th 3040**  
**Wynn's Roost System**  
**UNS **_**Formas**_**, Zenith Poin**t

Buster Devries was having strange days. Ever since the raid had gone south, things had taken an unnatural turn to them. Not bad, mind you, just unnatural but then again, pirate raid stopped by humans from another reality kinda sounded like something out of a bad holo.

Captain Kurata had made good on his word and had managed to get him a reprieve from execution, for him, his crew, even the kids Santiguez had in his ship as a cat's bell. He wasn't a free man, though, but he was now a civilian consultant working for the Spacy and that promised to be quite lucrative and beyond interesting.

It wasn't without its problems, though.

He was currently in the observation deck of the Yardship _Formas_, a massive, multi kilometer long vessel that had showed up a nearly a week before with a small armada in tow, including a large 'industrial vessel' that was now docked side by side to the _Formas_ and even more military ships.  
It wasn't over, either; they were still expecting the 'main fleet' any day now.

That wasn't an issue to Buster; the more powerful this UN was the better in his book. That way the pirates of Onverwacht could get what it was coming for them and the sooner, the better. No, the issue was his _Rockhound_ and how Yardship _Formas_ had, for lack of a better term, swallowed her up.

They had asked, and been polite about it, even had offered him a very attractive compensation, as he Spacy saw digging into his ship as something that was beyond the scope of his contract. Now, there were techs and machines all over the hull of his beloved ship. The insides weren't any better, he had seen as much, with covers removed and the JumpShip's innards being poked at. Of course, he wanted to give the situation a positive spin. After all it was getting the _Rockhound_ it's badly needed refit, if that is, these space wizards really could put it back together after they were done poking at it. That brought a bitter smile to his face.

He had his doubts the _Rockhound_ would sail the black again. It was an inglorious end for his father's pride and joy but it beat being a pirate's lackey. That would have broken his old man's heart for sure.

Of course, the _Rockhound_ was in far better shape than the _Elisai_, who was in the contiguous bay and receiving a less gentle treatment. Actually it looked as if the crews were disassembling the ship. Up to a few weeks ago he would have considered the thought sacrilegious, who in their right mind would destroy a JumpShip? But this people were different, they could replace the old with new and knew how the old worked.

"Ah, Buster, I knew I'd find you here, moping," came the familiar voice of Ibrahim Dobbs.

The older man had taken their new reality with stride. He and his people had also gotten a stray of execution thanks to Kurata, though the pirates stationed on the Fair Lady had been of the more vicious variety and hadn't gotten the pass. He wasn't going to mourn them.

"Ibrahim, it is good to see you," he said in a sedate tone as he turned towards the older trader.

"Now, now, you shouldn't be torturing this way, Buster, it is no good for you." He said patting the JumpShip Captain in the back.

"And what do you want me to do? Dance? That is my father's ship that the yard monkeys are going over. I need to see; especially if they can't put her back together." Ibrahim nodded at that, but remained unperturbed.

"Of course not, I understand, it is the captain's responsibility, after all. But come, you don't need to spend here all your downtime. Your crew is getting worried and reassuring them it is also a captain's responsibility," he finished with a wink.

"Well, I guess you are right, but…"

"No buts, my friend. You should enjoy the facilities and the gravity, can't forget about the gravity."

Buster understood how Ibrahim felt. There was a sense of wonder in the air, of marvel, similar to the one he felt on the old days, when he was still his Father's navigator. No, it was even more intense than that. It was new things and a hope for the future he hadn't had before.

"Did Esther put you up to this?"

"Does it matter?"

"I guess not," admitted Buster, to be honest if his second in command had sent Dobbs after him…

"Look," Ibrahim started derailing Buster's train of thought, "I trust these people with the _Fair Lady_, she is my all as well, and they promised they would return her to me better than new. They could have just taken our ships and be done with it. Honestly, there is nothing we can do about it, but instead they have made it request and even gave us compensation, even if we have to answer some weird questions." He said in a friendly tone, trying to steer the conversation away from the ships.

"You are right, some of their questions are downright bizarre," they had ranged from the mundane to the arcane. "They asked me things about the KF drive not even old Man Gagharin knows about." He said referring to the _Rockhound's_ chief engineer.

"I thought you realized it by now. These people know how their tech works, the engineers are all learned in their FTL mechanics. Now they wish to learn ours and see if they can, in that fashion, deepen their understanding of the cosmos. It used to be that way here too, long ago"

"You think," he paused for a second, feeling a bit dumb, "that makes sense, but some of the other questions… what do for fun? How do we entertain our young?"

"It's that culture obsession of theirs, I think, but do keep in mind, they aren't from this universe. So everything is new to them. There is nothing more dangerous than the things you think you know when you do not." He waxed philosophically, "I guess in their place I'd ask a lot of dumb questions too, just to be sure."

"You always had that nasty habit of making sense," he said stealing a glance back towards his _Rockhound_.

"But of course I do, I am me after all," he replied with a massive grin, "but onto more serious business. Have you been to the ship's civilian area?"

"Civilian area?" he said, trying his words, sure the ship was large but… it was preposterous.

"Oh, so you haven't," Ibrahim's grin widened even more at that; he clapped his hands, the smile not receding at all, "you are in for a treat, then; follow me, my friend, the wonders of Spacy hospitality awaits us."

* * *

**October 28th 3040**  
**Wynn's Roost's System**  
**Wynn's Court**

Thaddeus Mitchelson was starting to feel like cloning himself. There was simply too much to do and only so many hours in the local day.  
Worse, Gloria's insistence on him being the public face of the Rail Restoration project was a hassle he didn't need, he was plenty busy with the real work back at Vazquez Field, and he had also being roped into placing the cornerstone of the engineering building at the new university campus, though that had been kinda nice.

Before their arrival, Wynn's Roost had used a system of apprenticeship to maintain their knowledge base, but they had quickly jumped into the idea of having a university, again. The system they had was questionable; it had led to the loss of knowledge. In many ways it was a tourniquet; it would save the practical stuff, but not the more theoretical ones. From what he understood, the local technicians barely understood the theories behind the things they did. Oh, they were changing that, but it would take time to rebuild the foundations. Though it wasn't as if he couldn't argue with their reasoning, it had been the less bad of a number of options, with the intermittent pirate attacks from Onverwacht and even as far from Tortuga. They would have to do something about those places sooner or later. To think slavery was well and alive in the here and now…

He was currently with his aid, driving along the freshly laid tracks. It had been a shame, but the old maglev line had turned out to be unsalvageable, too many of the original magnets had been removed, damaged, or lost. Worse, the gauge the Star League had operated and the one the fleet did were different. So, in the end it wasn't a restoration project but a remove and replace one. It had meant a lot of work, it kept Phil Nakajima complaining more than he'd like to hear but he understood the situation and he knew Phil. He didn't feel alive unless he complained about something. It wasn't exactly remove and replace, the old track was too tough, made out of ferrocrete and encased in other local materials that, well, seemed to require specialized, black boxed, equipment to maintain and had zero provisions for removal, that of course had bit the dust about a hundred years prior. So while a team was laying the track in parallel to the old one, another was, slowly and with hardship, removing the oldtrack. The issue was going to be in the stations, but worse came worse, they could always move the platform over the old tracks.

Today he was visiting Phil; he had taken over the flagship project, the restoration of the rail link between Rook City and the Star Town.  
With the infrastructure being constructed in orbit, it made the most amount of sense to start with that link. Of course, there were three other teams working in other rail connections. From what he understood the local teamsters were up in arms about the projects, they were going to lose a lot of clout if the rails were up and running again. It would take a few years to get the rolling stock needed to render the teamsters secondary again, but they saw the writing in the wall and were demanding all sorts of compensations from the government. Doing what they could while their clout lasted, it was reasonable enough, if a bit morally bankrupt, and, to make matters worse, it wasn't earning the union any friends.

Not his problem.

The truth was they could probably use the teamsters, once they were properly re-trained, elsewhere. Manpower needs were going to be high in the next few years, especially with the training bottlenecks they were going to suffer.

"Boss, we are almost there," commented the aide. He could already see the heavy equipment, including the dedicated rail-layer and a number of Work Destroids.

"Park by that tent, I bet that is Phil's," replied Thaddeus, pointing at lonely tent surrounded by the heavy equipment.

Slowing down, his aide nodded and left the relative evenness of the road. Phil had come to meet them as they parked their M-500. The man had a sixth sense for this kind of thing, given all the noise construction work generated.

"Boss!" exclaimed Phil as he extended his hand

"Phil, how are you," Thaddeus replied shaking his underling's hand.

"Can't complain, rather busy as it stands."

"Is the maglev giving you any problems?" asked Thaddeus.

"Like you wouldn't believe, that thing is built silly though. Had to use high explosives to dislodge some sections."

"I knew it was a tough material, but damn," replied the senior engineer.

"Yup, couldn't believe it myself when I gave the order."

"So, how is it going?"

"Slower than expected, we are laying the new track at a good speed, though I'd be going faster if I had more Destroids instead of work crews."

"Compromise is the name of the game, Phil, the Wynns have an employment issue and Andretti saw the infrastructure work as a good way of solving it for a few years." The mixed teams weren't only about solving the employment crisis, but also about building bridges, not that Phil would understand that reasoning. "Besides, we are stretched a bit thin right now."

"That bad?"

"Well, I got teams finishing Vazquez Field, your teams, the ones restoring Star Town, the ones laying the foundations the Emerald bay Site, the hospital teams, the university team, and finally the ones doing orbital infrastructure work. That is Gunjo and Kojima's by the way, who are way behind schedule." He said counting with his fingers for extra impact.

"That sounds bad," replied the Rail specialist, "so I won't be getting the extra destroids, then?"

"No, sorry, completely out of the question" was the prompt reply.

"That is going to leave me behind schedule as well," complained the younger engineer.

"That is regrettable, but there is nothing I can do, for now," Concluded Chief Engineer Mitchelson. "However, I can send more work crews your way. You'll have to do it the old fashioned way and it will keep Andretti happy."

"Ok, I'll take them, but only conditionally." Replied Phil, a hesitantly.

"Sure, I understand, I…" he paused for a moment, "wait a second, my comm link is buzzing."

"Yes? I see… No, it is ok, when? Oh, that is great! Where? Gotcha, thanks for the heads up."

Thaddeus turned towards Phil, "got good news, the fleet shod be arriving imminently, they already picked up the distortion wave from the defolds."

"So, I will get my destroids now?" he asked with a bit of mirth.

"Yeah, but that is not the point, call your crew, have them come here. It will be visible from this area." That rose an eyebrow.

"Command wants to awe the locals, it seems."

"Yep." was the nonchalant reply.

All over the hemisphere work stopped and those that could stepped into the outdoors, and headed to the parks, those stuck behind desks, in doors or on the opposite side of the planet tuned the local networks to see both sky and the black. And then, an infinity that couldn't have been more than ten minutes later the first pinpricks of light formed where they had no business being. One after another, sphere of iridescent light spat out man made constructs of all sizes. It took perhaps twenty seconds, but for the first time in a long time Wynn's roost looked united at the future.

The 53rd had arrived to its new home.

* * *

Well, there you have it, let me know what you guys think.


End file.
